People
Issue No. 25 - October/November 2005
What do sales champions do better?
by Craig Stubing
As with other forms of endeavour the world of sales has its champions and its ‘not-so-champions’.
It’s worthwhile to examine four key areas where the sales champions do it better and show how that contributes to their success.
The first is attitude
Champions have a positive attitude; they are ‘glass-half-full people’. This is not to be confused with brashness, cockiness or being falsely ‘pumped up’. It is a quiet positiveness that affects all of their interactions on day-to-day basis.
It also means that they respect their customers, their work colleagues, their product and — most importantly — their chosen vocation.
This positiveness is infectious and helps sway customers during the sales process.
Sales champions also keep their egos under control. They realise that it’s possible to learn from the most humble of people, so they are open to suggestion and don’t fear criticism.
Having a positive attitude also helps the champion deal with the inevitable knockbacks that come in selling without taking the rejection personally and getting down at heart.
They realise that disappointments are part of sales, so they simply dust themselves off and move on as if the disappointment hadn’t happened.
This doesn’t mean that they don’t learn from their disappointments. They value the lessons that come from experience; they simply refuse to dwell on the negatives.
Knowing the score
The second key attribute is knowledge. Champions know their product. They take the trouble to study the features of their product and the benefits those features provide.
They do this because they know that customers buy benefits that they want or need. They also accept the responsibility of identifying the customer’s wants and needs and helping the customer see that those wants and needs can be satisfied by the product.
This leads to ...
