Tag Archives: sales skills

Sales Myth Episode 2: Selling Ice to Eskimos

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Another sales myth that is the most popular is that if you can sell, you can sell anything.

And a lovely cliché of selling ice to Eskimos. That is also not true.

There are several types of sales people and they perform better if they stick to their marketplace. So, there are people that can generate new business, and we often call them hunters and they have a series of different formal business names. And then, there are those people who can nurture and grow an existing client base, we call them account managers and farmers. They are not the same people.

If you move people between the two jobs, they will fail. The hunters who are agile, adaptive, fluid, capable of dealing with the unknown and that ultimately means people that are new to the business, new to your client base, will get bored and stroppy and lazy if you make them step on and farm. They won’t object though. They’ll agree happily because farming is easier, or it is to them anyway. So they’ll happily say, “Sure. I’ll take over the client base and the prestige of being the account executive,” but they would do a bad job for you.

On the other hand, the strategic long-term precise people who are really good account managers who can sit themselves down and really think about what they need to say and why and how, and prepare the tools that they’re trained, who don’t need to improvise and don’t like doing it. They cannot ___. Not just won’t they willing, they actually can’t. The different mentality. It’s a different skill sets. So, you will waste their skill and capacity if you make them go out and do it. Lots of businesses, when they’re short of cash just get everyone on the phone, let’s all make cold calls including, yes. I’m the managing director. I will sit down because I’m brave and I will do it with you.

Five percent of people are able to do that. Don’t torture and discourage and demoralize your staff by making them do something that they really cannot. It’s not about their willingness. It’s not about them being being diligent.

Find out more by contacting Maya.

Watch Part 3: Answering whether there’s only ONE type of Salesperson?

What If the grass really were greener on the Other Side?

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Should you be in Sales?

Have you ever looked around you at work and thought; Why am I doing so much for so little money whilst those folk in the Sales Department seem to do nothing and are raking it in? I think we have all wondered why sales people make so much more than the rest of us.

The reason is simple.

They bring money into the business and for that we are all grateful.

But their lot is not as easy as it looks from the outside. As a salesperson they get to have their emotional systems battered for a living. For every ‘yes’ they get they have to hear 9 ‘no’s’ and those no’s are not usually polite, reasonable ones. Those folk get battered. So why do they do it? Is it just the money?

May it’s the money; maybe it’s the thrill of the chase. Maybe it’s a lifelong need for…?? Who knows why they do it really! It is obvious though that only for a small number of people is this continuous rejection acceptable. What’s worse they seem to be having a ball at it despite the rejection. How is that possible?

Some people are well suited to the selling process and for whatever reason are really able to manage the rejection part of it.

Could this be you?

You don’t want to give up a reasonable and ultimately, safe pay packet to free fall from the dizzy heights of the selling cliff. Selling is a death or glory business. Those that can get loads of money and glory and those that cannot die a rapid death emotionally and ultimately, financially.

Now there is a safe and accurate way to work out if you could sell before you actually take up a Sales job.

It’s called SIP.

That stands for Sales Inventory Profile. It’s a questionnaire that is looking to see if you have the attributes that are needed to succeed in selling. It’s based on a well researched pool of attributes that all successful sales people have.

If you knew you had enough of these attributes then the initial struggle to establish yourself in selling would be well worth it?

Sure it would.

Firstly, we all expect a ‘training’ or an ‘apprentice’ period in a new job. Plus if you really were suited to selling then you have that unknown reason for accepting immediate rejection and thus failure for ultimate success. That means you’d survive being useless at it while you learn the ropes. If your new boss knew you had what it takes, they would survive you being useless for the apprenticeship period while you got fully into it.

Watch this interview with one of our Sales team members on her sales career journey