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The Seven Strategies of the Highly Effective Salesperson

By John Graham Franklin Covey built a whole industry out of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and others have followed in his steps. Of the books that came along in a steady stream, perhaps Seven Sins for a Life Worth Living is the most intriguing of them all and one that many may be tempted to not only buy but to actually read it. To carry it a step further, what about the strategies of the highly effective salesperson? What makes them different and why do they stand out from the pack? Here are the seven strategies: 1. Effective salespeople look to the customer for the solution. This may seem like a ridiculous statement; yet, effective salespeople operate by it intuitively. The major product they bring to the table is what they know about customers, not what they are selling. While product knowledge is important, its only the baseline. Its customer knowledge that makes them different. Matt Oeschsli, who has expertise in the financial services field, drives the point home. For years, he says, I have been saying to anyone who will listen, if you are serious about working with the affluent, you must become a student of the affluent. Its the same in every industry. Too many of those in sales like to think of themselves as solution experts. What they fail to recognize is that the solution rests with the customer, not with the salesperson. The customer knows the issues and understands the problems. What the customer needs is a way to make the solution a reality. TriFactor, Inc., the Lakeland, FL-based material handling systems integrator, operates on this premise. In the companys customer agreement, there is a revealing sentence: The customer and TriFactor, Inc. will jointly design the particular material 1

handling system. The operative word is jointly. The mission of TriFactor sales engineers is to bring their expertise to bear on making certain the solution meets the customers requirements. 2. Effective salespeople are committed to presentation improvement. Heres the skinny: most salespeople think theyre much better presenters than they are. Theres a reason for this: facing up to the fact that were poor presenters is threatening, even shattering. Having said that, effective salespeople can be excellent presenters if they work at it. Richard Valeriani, the long-time NBC correspondent, tells of being called to work with GE CEO Jack Welch on his retirement speech. It was clear to Valeriani that Welch was not about to let down the bar just because he was giving his final presentation. Carmine Gallo, a business communications coach and former TV journalist, analyzed Steve Jobs introduction of Apples iPhone. One of the comments had to do with practice. Writing in Business Week, he says, Jobs makes presentations look effortless because he takes nothing for granted. Jobs is known to rehearse demonstrations for hours prior to launch events. And then he adds, I can name many high-profile chief executives who decide to wing it. It shows. Jobs demands perfection in the products Apple sells and nothing less than that in the way he presents them. Highly effective salespeople hone their presentation skills. 3. Effective salespeople embrace new ideas. We might say embracing new ideas is the norm. In We Are Smarter Than Me, Barry Libert and Jon Spector tells of A.G. Lafleys arrival as chairman and CEO at P&G in 2000. He stunned his prideful researchers, all 9,000 of them in R&D when he said that they were not producing enough winners to meet the companys growth goals. Then he shocked this vaunted group when he told them that by the end of the decade, fully half of all new P&G products and technologies would have to come from outside the company. Lafley set into motion a system of sharing information, leveraging retired scientists and engineers, and tapping into Innocentive, the network of more than 100,000 technical people from nearly 200 countries who receive cash awards if their ideas pay off.

According to one report, fully 35 percent of P&Gs ideas were coming from outsiders by 2006. Equally important, the companys R&D productivity zoomed up 60 percent and 80 percent of the companys new product launches are successful, compared to the 30 percent industry average. Heres the point: salespeople dont burn out; rather, they make themselves irrelevant by failing to see change as opportunity. 4. Effective salespeople focus on helping. Customers today know when they are being hustled by the salesperson whose sole objective is to walk away with an order. Toward the end of the year, a business owner received a call from a business equipment company salesperson indicating that the cost of color copier supplies would be nearly tripling within a few weeks. If you want to order at the current price, we have a supply in inventory, he said. Whatever the facts, how did the message sound? Candidly, like someone who was trying to make his numbers by years end. There were no explanations, no options, and no suggestions. There was no effort to be helpful. Helping is the overarching strategy, the hallmark, of the effective salesperson. 5. Effective salespeople possess a customer relationship vision. The day of get the order and get going is gone. If thats all a salesperson has to offer, the smart customer goes elsewhere. If youve ever bought a life insurance policy, chances are you didnt hear from the salesperson again. This is an example of the just get the fish in the boat mentality. Their focus is on making the sale, not on creating a relationship that has a long-term potential. Customers sense when they are being hustled; they catch on quickly and wont tolerate such tactics. Even though they may need what is being offered, they refuse to buy from salespeople whose motives are so clearly transparent. Without such a customer relationship vision, there is no future. 6. Effective salespeople see themselves as marketers. The holiday greeting card arrived in the mail with a photograph of a group of employees on the outside. Over the photo were the words, Seasons Greetings From Your Team. Wait a minute. Thats 3

their team, not mine. Was the card anything other than a friendly gesture? Perhaps not. At the same time, it may reflect the underlying attitude of so many businesses and particularly a large group of salespeople. We say that its all about the customer, but what comes through is quite a different messageits really all about us. Its an overarching danger in business, including sales. While we say the right words about being customer-centric, the real message comes through, one that betrays our customer commitment: We come first. The highly effective salesperson never falls into that trap. 7. Effective salespeople pull customers ever closer. Why does Toyota sell more vehicles every year? The 2007 J.D. Power Customer Retention Study offers insight into Toyotas success. Toyota maintains its high retention rates by providing high-quality vehicles and service to its existing customers, says J.D. Powers Neal Oddes, which in turn generates favorable word-of-mouth recommendations that attract new customers. The report indicates that 64% of Toyotas customers say they are staying with the nameplate. If Toyota were to rewrite Chevrolet Malibus The car you cant ignore ad headline, it might go something like thisThe car youre glad you bought. This is exactly how the effective salesperson behaves every day. When it comes to selling, the major task for the highly effective salesperson is not to meet or beat the numbers, but to hone those qualities that deliver the right results. ####
John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications, a marketing services and sales consulting firm. He is the author of The New Magnet Marketing and Break the Rules Selling, writes for a variety of business publications, and speaks on business, marketing and sales topics. Contact him at 40 Oval Road, Quincy, MA 02170; 617-328-0069; [email protected]. The companys web site is grahamcomm.com.