Let me ask you a question. Why is it that at the same exact company one salesperson can be struggling just to get by making let's say, $40,000 a year while someone at the exact same organization selling the exact same products or services can be crushing it, making 2, 3, $400,000 a year doing the exact same thing? The difference is that top-performing salespeople are great at what they do, and they are using a different set of approaches and they have simply different qualities that they demonstrate in the sales process.
So in this video, I'm going to show you the top qualities of great salespeople. Check it out. Number One- Implement.
Now, having been a sales trainer now for 20 years, I see time and time again, the difference between the average and the great is the ability to implement. So I see most people who are just kind of dragging their heels, coming up with excuses to why they can't implement, yet the great salespeople are implementing like crazy. And you know what?
They're making tons of mistakes, and they're doing lots of things wrong. But because they're implementing time after time after time, they're getting closer. And so by simply implementing ideas, like from this video, you are so much more likely to get into that tier of great salespeople.
Implement like crazy. Who cares? The worst thing that can happen is it doesn't work.
Number Two- Prioritize. So this is another big difference between average and just great, great salespeople, is the ability to prioritize what matters. So let me paint two pictures.
So if the average salesperson gets bogged down in customer issues, operational things, organizing their desk, doing all these things that don't matter, the great salesperson takes all that stuff off their plate and all they care about are doing a couple of things, which typically means filling their pipeline, so prospecting, and closing deals. I mean, those are really the only two things that matter for a great salesperson. So prioritize your time to do the things that actually make you money, and everything else, find a way to not do it.
Number Three- Say no. It's almost like the old dare ads that would say "just say no. " As salespeople, we need to say no more often, and this builds off of what I just said about prioritizing.
Great salespeople are willing to say no to people all the time. So if you come across a prospect who simply is not going to be a fit, move on, say no. If someone asks you to help out with this operational issue and it's really not critical to you, say no.
It's not about being selfish, it's actually about prioritizing what most matters, and leveraging your skills to solve the problems that really most matter to you and to your organization, because the reality is is that your organization has you in place to close deals. If you're the owner of your business, the most important thing you can be doing is closing deals. So start to say no to all of those distractions and focus completely on what matters.
Number Four- Willing to piss people off. Being willing to piss off prospects is so important, it is such a important quality of great salespeople. Now, be clear, this isn't saying that the goal of sales or the goal of prospecting is to piss people off.
Of course not, that would be ridiculous, but we must be willing to accept that there are going to be some people that are just annoyed with our outreach, that are going to be just annoyed or frustrated or even in some cases angry at something that we did. And the reality is, is that's okay, because if you are not willing to piss people off then you are going to live in a set of confines, that means that you can't really prospect because of course people are going to get annoyed at you when you prospect, and even when it comes to closing deals, if we're not willing to push prospects in a way that is kind of taking them in the direction they need to go, then you know they might resist that and they might get a little annoyed sometimes. That's part of the process.
So being willing to piss people off is actually part of selling. If you're not comfortable with that, then you simply should do something else. Number Five- Obsessed with pipeline.
Now, this is one of the key differentiators between great salespeople and everyone else, is that great salespeople are obsessed with pipeline because your pipeline, how strong it is, how many leads you have in your pipeline, how many meetings you have set for the next few weeks, that is indicative of what you're going to be making in the next couple of months. And so by being totally obsessed with your pipeline, making sure that you have exactly as many appointments as you need is going to be one of the key things that will lead to you making what you want to earn. So by being obsessed with your pipeline, making sure that it is just chock-full of leads, is going to allow you to make money.
Because let's face it, you could have the greatest closing process of all time, but if you simply don't have enough leads you're going to be just sitting on your hands. We must be obsessed with pipeline. That is the most important indicator of our future success.
Number Six- Knows the prospect is often wrong. So I already alluded to this, but the reality is is that your prospects are wrong all the time. The old adage that the customers always right is ridiculous.
Your prospects are wrong all the time. In fact, oftentimes what they think they need is absolutely not what they need, and what they think is the problem isn't really the problem. Your prospects are just wrong constantly.
Now, that doesn't mean that we have to go around telling them that they're wrong, that would be silly, but we need to understand that the prospect is wrong. Think about it like a doctor. If you're an orthopedist who works on people's backs all the time, they're going to come in and they're going to say, "Hey, doc, my lower back really hurts," but we know as orthopedist that that pain in the lower back may have nothing to do with the lower back, it could have something to do with vertebrae in the upper neck.
So we need to think the same way of, what's the real issue? What's really going on? Where does the person really need help?
And that's how we bring massive value, is by not accepting at face value what the prospect is telling us, but really digging deeply to get to the real heart of the issue. This is a huge differentiator between everyone else and great salespeople. Number Seven- Distrustful.
I cannot tell you how many salespeople come along and say, "Oh yeah, this person is so excited, they're so into it. " And then we check in a week later and the prospect is gone. Great sales reps are constantly distrustful of their prospects, and that's for good reason because prospects lie, they cheat, they steal.
It's not because they're bad people, it's because we're all playing this game of prospect and salesperson. And so as a great salesperson, we must be distrustful of prospects. Don't ever trust that a sale is going to close until it actually closes.
So what this allows us to do is it allows us to really keep our guard up and to stick to the process, because what happens oftentimes is we think we have this amazing prospect, and then we let down our guard and we get sloppy on our process and then the thing falls apart. Great salespeople remember every time that no matter how good this lead seems we must stick to the process, and be distrustful of the prospect in a healthy way because that's what's going to keep us on track. Number Eight- Inquisitive.
Great salespeople are just always inquisitive about their prospect's world. It's like the old TV show "Colombo," where the detective is just constantly just trying to get to the bottom of things, and he is just kind of bumbling around asking questions, finding out what's going on. That's what great salespeople do, is they're really trying to get to the heart of the issue.
And so it's not just that they're using this sales process and they're trying to get there, but they're genuinely curious to get to the real problem. And so by being just genuinely inquisitive, you're going to bring tremendous value to your prospect's life because you're going to help them identify what the real issue is, what's the real solution, and what's really going on. Number Nine- Knows their value.
I would be completely remiss if I didn't mention that all great salespeople know their value, because if you feel like you're the kind of salesperson that is taking value from people when you're prospecting or when you're selling, then you're going to have this cognitive dissonance where you feel like you're just taking, and that doesn't feel good. And as a result, we start to sell in a really timid way, we're afraid to actually start those conversations. We must believe and know at a deep level that the people that we sell to, we are creating massive value in their lives.
For example, at the Sales Insights Lab, we believe massively that the people that become a part of our community are gaining huge value, and that's just a core belief that we have. You must feel the exact same way. When you know you bring value, suddenly doing things like prospecting, interrupting people's day, asking the hard questions, that all becomes easy because we know that we're creating huge value for them.
So there are the top qualities of great salespeople. And if you enjoyed this video, they have an amazing free training on the step-by-step formula to closing more deals. Just click right here to get registered instantly.
Seriously, just click right here. This is an in-depth training that will help you close more deals at higher prices, all while generating more meetings. Also, if you've got some value, please like this video below on YouTube and be sure to subscribe by clicking my face, which should be right about here, to get access to a new video just like this one each week.
