How do you know if you are an elite salesperson?
Having worked with Dave Kurlan and the team at Objective Management Group for many years, we have the unique opportunity to be able to identify who are elite salespeople with incredible accuracy. Elite salespeople are at the top of their game and drive sales for any company they work for. Less than 7% of active salespeople are elite......that tells you a lot about the rest!
Well, I had a really interesting situation 2 weeks ago when I was running a sales development workshop at Exchange Place in Warwick. I had a group of 22 young salespeople who had come along for the day to help develop their sales capabilities. I started the day by providing the team with a few interesting statistics on the characteristics of elite salespeople and what they have that others do not. This led to a great question from Brian, one of the young guys attending . I was asked "How do I know if I'm an elite salesperson?"
The simple answer is to take the OMG sales evaluation which will tell you whether you are in that top 7%. But something else struck me as a great indicator of future success....your willingness to adapt and change even when that change is hard to do. Great salespeople, like elite sportspeople or musicians, have a very high level of self-awareness and a massive desire to continually improve their performance. They constantly seek high level training and are very open to new and innovative approaches.
With this in mind, my simple answer to Brian was this:
"I have evidence that only 8% of those people that attend training events like this will make any meaningful changes to how they sell as a result of the event. Most will commit to making changes but when they go back to their selling roles, they will revert to their old, embedded behaviours rather than making the changes necessary to achieve greater success. Why? Because changing is hard and requires real commitment and most people lack this true commitment to grow and improve. In this case, my training becomes a form of "Infotainment", you enjoy the day but don't do anything differently.
If, however you have the commitment to make the changes that you will learn here today and use the new skills from the moment you next get in front of a prospect, you will get better, guaranteed. It's no coincidence that the percentage of elite salespeople is very closely aligned with the percentage of people who will put into action straight away what they have learned.
I asked the question of Brian and everyone else in the room; "Are you in that 8% who will use what you learn today immediately? If you are then there's a great chance you are on your way to being elite."
The best news is that Brian chose to use what I had taught him and I received this email from him a couple of days after the training.
Hello Gary
This email came through from my boss following an appointment I had yesterday which was the day after I did training with you on Thursday and this result is largely because of the content of what you taught us. I used some further techniques from the training in another appointment immediately afterwards and securing a £9,000 order with another £5,000 order hopefully to be confirmed next week.
Possibly not 100% down to my new knowledge but definitely supported. Thanks
This is the email that his boss had received from the potential customer that Brian called on:
Hi John (Brian's boss)
Brian called to see me today for 5 mins and ended up 2 hours ! It’s the first time I have actually met him and had a good meeting with him , he is a credit to your company.
It’s not very often that I take the time to email somebody’s boss that he has a good man working for them, but most don’t get past the door!
But he listens and takes on board what’s being said. I’m sure he will do well for your company.
Kind regards
Brian had the commitment and desire to want to be one of the 7% of salespeople that are elite and the chances are he will make it.
By Gary Delbridge, Founder and CEO of Objective Assessment