Revenue Masters

I enjoyed reading this article entitled the “Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople.”  The author Steve Martin identifies what to some may sound counter-intuitive: (1) That most successful sales professionals scored high on the “Modesty and Achievement Orientation” portion of the referenced personality test, and (2) That most successful sales professionals show 30% less gregariousness.  Those findings sure correct two oft-repeated salesperson stereotypes!

Here is the complete list of characteristics according to Martin that great salespeople demonstrate: 1. Modesty. 2. Conscientiousness. 3. Achievement Orientation. 4. Curiosity. 5. Lack of Gregariousness. 6. Lack of Discouragement. 7. Lack of Self-Consciousness. The following sentence particularly struck me as critically informative to sales professionals.  “The evidence suggests that the personalities of these truly great salespeople play a critical role in determining their success”.  After reading that, one might ask this obvious question.  If you seek the highest performance in the IT sales profession, how do your characteristics, preferences, and tendencies compare to this list?

Clients will be the first to tell you that what they are looking for in IT service partners is straightforward — serious, disciplined, highly competent professionals. The article is clearly stating that clients in fact will only trust professionals who are perceived as both authentic and intentional.  In complex IT solution sales, be it BI or CRM solutions, or IT technical staffing services, clients are demanding from partners both solutions they can have confidence in, and teams they can trust.  The central point comes down to this — clients are not interested in big sales personalities that have overwhelming levels of self-confidence.  Sales people that don’t have the traits identified in Martin’s article most often come across as self-centered, and perhaps even sketchy – and won’t exude the characteristics that grow into a relationship based on confidence and integrity.

Here are four quick questions for every IT sales professional to ask themselves.

1. Are you in an IT sales profession because of an extraordinary interest in successfully addressing client needs?
2. When notified that a client is extending their trust to your firm, is your first reaction a commitment to perform above their expectation?
3. Once you have learned enough to close the sale, is the next step to engage your team to learn even more about the overall picture of client requirements so you know enough to drive a successful project?
4. Does the resultant detailed discovery and understanding precede any effort to optimized client business processes, skills and talents, and enabling technologies?

Modesty is first on Steve Martin’s list. In other words, do you have enough modesty not to start every IT services relationship or project with ready-made answers?  Modesty in face of complexity demands a firm start it’s relationships and projects with a motivated and discerning team of subject matter experts who are committed to the tireless and creative effort of addressing client interests within the client’s boundaries and frameworks.

This is how this value chain works.  If your firm and its individuals can wrap themselves around the natures and culture identified in this article, you will improve your ability to drive client success. Client success is the underscoring prerequisite to personal success.

Tags: Sales, sales performance, sales tips

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 7th, 2011 at 8:46 am and is filed under Sales Strategy, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.