Secrets of Top Sales Performers

Are the top performers in sales different to the crowd? What is it that makes them stand out? How can we be sales top performers too?

We recently surveyed a number of the guys who’ve managed to stay at the top of their game over extended periods – asking them to explain how they do the job differently. Here’s a list of the secrets of top sales performers, or at least the ones they would share with us.

The relationship between customer and salesman should be seen as creative tension. Both parties are interested in their own objectives, but each can only achieve what they want by working with the other. Their interests would appear to be mutually exclusive – the customer wants the lowest price while the salesman wants the highest. But, if they don’t find a way of agreeing a mutual objective, the deal never gets done and nobody gets what he wants. Understanding how this works is critically important to both parties if they’re going to get the most out of the transaction. If one party understands he can coach the other through process, from initial interest to contract. If neither party understands the probable outcome will be bad business, for at least one of them, if not both. If the customer’s the one who understands, he’s going to get the most out of the deal. If the salesman’s the one, he’s going to get the best price, at the time he wants, for delivering the minimum requirement. The top sales people understand this. I’m not sure how because none of the training material I’ve come across explains it, and anyway most don’t get trained properly. It’s probably a combination realism and empathy. Enough realism to understand there is always a time to walk away, and being prepared to; enough empathy to want to do the best for the customer.

Through experience these top achievers have built up their own knowledge bases, full of tactics they can employ to get the customer thinking the right way and doing the right thing. This makes them very powerful people and probably explains why success in selling is seen as some sort of black art. It’s important to understand these professionals don’t misuse this power to get the customer buying the wrong thing. To the top guys, their integrity is of paramount importance. It’s what gets them easy repeat business, gets them reference accounts, job offers and customers who pay for the lunch. They use these tactics to manage the inexperienced customer to the right outcome, at the lowest cost of sale.

How does this knowledge get passed on? Well in theory that’s the sales managers job, but most don’t understand. They don’t get the job because they understand selling – they get it because they go along with the command and control structures in their companies. What about the training companies? They don’t seem to understand either; they certainly don’t explain it. If professional people don’t get taught this stuff, what hope is there for the entrepreneur who’s great at what he does, but needs to do the selling as well? Now there’s an answer.

Our knowledge base, built into Front Office, provides them with a fast track to excellence. Knowledge, built up over years by guys who have been the top performers in sales is now available to Front Office customers as part of our service. With our knowledge base – Serious About Selling – Front Office users have advice and guidance from the professionals on-line. Now they can adopt the same principles to get more sales, more quickly, at lower cost.

Top guys always approach their job with discipline, a hard dose of reality and these Guiding Principles: