Some salespeople view themselves as victims of the economy. They listen to all the pessimistic economic forecasts and blame declining sales on terrorists’ acts and other issues.
Top salespeople accept no excuses for poor performance. They recognize that customers depend on them to perform tasks that need to be done.
They view themselves as completely in charge of everything that happens to them. If they don’t like what’s going on, they decide it’s up to them to change it or improve it in some way.
1. Empathy and ambition. Top salespeople concentrate on two qualities: empathy and ambition. Empathy causes them to be sensitive to the best interests of customers. Ambition helps them to focus on making the sales expected of them.
They also care about themselves, their companies, their products, and their services, and they really care about helping their customers make good buying decisions.
2. Distinguishing qualities. Top salespeople possess qualities that distinguish them from lower-producing salespeople:
- They get prospects involved in the conversation early, late, and often.
- They uncover prospects' needs before even mentioning a product.
- They acknowledge and support the prospect's comments twice as often as mediocre performers. They also ask about 25% more open-ended questions.
- They turn around negative attitudes. Successful sales calls contain almost 50% more objections than unsuccessful calls.
- They summarize benefits and propose a plan of action in closing.
