Sales is Not for Wimps

The thing about sales, you see, is that it is a lot more difficult than it looks. 

Growing up I heard a lot of recommendations to go into sales as a career.  Something about having no fear whatsoever of walking up to any stranger and talking to them as if we were lifelong friends.  Heck, the way I saw it was that everyone wants a friend and all I had to do was be one.  As I got older, and puberty was some years past, I learned the value of being charming and full of charisma.  Probably learned more about sales in those later teenaged years than any other 5 year span the following 30.

But even with some success and being able to talk to anyone with some degree of charm, I still didn’t know beans about the world of sales and what it would take to be successful in it.  Couldn’t tell you for the life of me why when it came time to close a sale my mouth started doing a little jig with the words and they came out with 5 times as many syllables as they started with.  Hel-l-l-l-o?  Why when it came time to ask the head of a company for an appointment, my brain got all mashed potato like and my knees emulated a San Andreas 7.0.

For some reason, it was much easier to re-organize my pencil drawer than make cold calls.  I knew it wasn’t because I was afraid, because I was well known for talking to anyone.  If you asked me, I knew the answers to any sales question and readily provided them to everyone who asked.  In fact even if you didn’t ask, I was providing answers.

It wasn’t until one day a woman I had a slight crush on, after hearing some of my excellent and awesome, un-requested, and unrequited, wise beyond my years, sage advice, turned to me with a slightly disgusted look on her face and asked me point blank, “Michael, if you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”

Damn!  That was a good question.  I hated it but it was a good one.  Not to be outdone in the moment, though clearly reeling from a well-placed blow to the ego, I advised her that I would have to get back to her on that.  She’s still waiting.  There is a secret place in my heart that hopes she never finds this article…

For everyone else however, I will admit to what has become a lifelong study on what makes a successful salesperson.  Guess what?  It ain’t about charm or charisma, Ok, they help but plenty of folks without make a lot of money in the business.  Ugly people make money in sales and to my dismay; I am discovering that men with male pattern baldness can make a living doing this stuff too.

So what on earth is the difference between KNOWING what to do and actually getting around to doing what you know?

One of the best series of answers I can find comes from Dave Kurlan at OMG or Objective Management Group who has quantified the 4 strengths that drive a sales person and the 5 major weaknesses that will throw them into a big blue funk.  (In sales it’s a blue funk; in baseball they call it a slump.  Even if it lasts 86 years, Go Boston.)

The strengths include outlook, commitment, desire and responsibility.  Weaknesses involve need for approval, record collection, money issues, buy cycle, and emotional involvement.  When we lack the strengths it doesn’t take much to destroy a sale.  When we have too much weakness, we couldn’t sell our way out of a wet paper bag.

What is fairly disconcerting for a happy go lucky guy like me is that the more I try to reach out with charm and humor, the more I display a desperate need for approval from the people I am talking with.  If I need a prospect to approve of me, how can I manage the negotiating phase of the sales effort in my companies and my favor?  Frankly all I am doing is demonstrating that my win comes from my client telling me “he likes me fine.”  Even if he says right after that something like, “but we have decided to buy from someone else.”  Ouch.

So, to end up as successful as I have become, it was important to find ways of getting that need for approval met from someone other than a prospect.  Same is true for every sales person.  Same is true for each of the weaknesses.  If you got one, and you probably have at least one, it’s costing you a few bucks every year.

If you’re hiring these guys, and if you hire salespeople you are, it probably makes sense to help them develop strategies to fix it outside of their selling arena.  Otherwise it’s costing you lots of dollars every year.

It also explains why the guy who looks so good in an interview costs so much in non-sales when they get in the game. 

For business owners like me who care a lot about sales and don’t have lots of time to do the activities, it’s critical to use selling time as efficiently as possible.  And if you ever want to hear a really good question that motivates you to change your behavior, let me know, I got a good one that is still burning in my guts.