What do top sales pro’s do differently?
We all know those people, or at the very least hear the stories, of the sales people that are crushing through their target every single month. They are making insane money, have nice cars, vacation on remote beaches and live a life that most only dream of. The hard truth of sales is that not everyone is going to get to the top. The good news? The fact that you are reading this now can reassure you that you are well on your way to being at the top!
But what do the top sales professionals do differently? Why is it that some people make it to the top of the field while some spend their careers sending out RFQs or sitting open houses just to make their mortgage?
We are going to break down what you might call “the secret sauce” in this article.
Mindset:
Look, you simply can’t talk about being at the top of any field without first addressing mindset. And I don’t mean that Dr. Phil “gratitude” shit, I mean that real, bulletproof, growth mindset.
Mindset is your attitude, outlook and belief about yourself, your situation and the world around you. If that is shit, then there isn’t a tip, trick, method or technique in the world that is going to help you. If you truly believe that success in sales comes down to product, price, territory or whatever excuse then you are going to hold yourself back through your whole career and you might as well change careers now. That is not to say that they don’t have an impact, of course they do, but not in the long run.
People are not born to be a sales person, it’s a skillset they learned. Some people absolutely had an upbringing that fostered the skillsets necessary while others didn’t but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn them now. This is mindset – knowing your situation is not fixed and you can do something about it with the right effort, attitude and goals in place.
Top sales professionals understand this key phrase “mindset dictates performance, performance does not dictate mindset”. Know that your situation can change. Skills can be learned. You are in control of all of it. The table stakes, so to speak, of the top sales professionals is their mindset.
Will to win:
You’ve probably heard it said that athletes make great sales people. This is mostly true but not all athletes; only those that made it to a high level of competition. Why? Simple; they understand the commitment it takes to win but also can push past the sting of defeat.
To top sales people life is a competition. They compete ALL the time. They want to win president’s club. They want to lift more weight or run faster. They want to visit more countries than other people. They want to donate more time to charities. They want to do more than other people around them. Plain and simple.
Everyone hates to lose. However, some people are afraid of it. This fear keeps them from putting their neck on the line, pushing harder and being bold. They sit back and avoid rejection. Top sales people let that fuel them. Sure, they lost this sale, this month, this quarter but they are going to train and come back more prepared, so it doesn’t happen again. This gets back to mindset. They take responsibility for their outcomes, learn from them, and win the next time. Their will to win is stronger than those around them.
Curiosity:
Give a man a fish and eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. Teach a loser how to fish and he complains it’s cold outside. The desire to want to learn, grow and understand the world is a huge part of top sales people while the average sales person just wants answers, the top sales person wants to understand.
The obvious barrier with limited curiosity is in discovery. The average sales person is simply looking for surface level information. Are they qualified? Do they have x? Do they have y? They are just gathering answers waiting for their chance to speak. Top sales people are genuinely curious. They want to know the what, sure, but they also want to know the why. They ask follow up questions almost out of habit because they want to understand!
But outside of the call you see it as well. Top sales pros hear about “Challenger Sales”, “Gap Selling”, “MEDDIC” or whatever and they are curious about what it is, so they read the book or watch videos. They don’t wait for it to be trained to them through their company, they are too curious to wait. They spend as much time off the call learning as possible.
Lifetime learners:
This goes hand in hand with curiosity but top sales professionals are lifetime learners. Or, as we call them, true Students of Sales. They listen to calls, they read books (sales, personal development, psychology), they pay attention to company lead trainings, they practice their pitch outside the office, they study objections. Again, they don’t wait for information to be brought to them, they actively go out and seek it.
Creativity:
This is probably one of the most under discussed skills that a sales person can have. You simply cannot solve problems if you aren’t creative, at least not in the sales world where the problem is never as straightforward and simple as “what is 1 +1”?
Creativity is the ability to generate new and original ideas, or to approach problems and challenges in innovative ways. It involves using one’s imagination and critical thinking skills to come up with fresh solutions and approaches.
You will be hit with problems in sales every single day that will take creativity to solve:
Customer’s problem
How do you get to target?
How do you book more appointments?
How do you get the decision maker on a call?
How do you follow up without seeming desperate or pushy?
These are just a few problems you’ve most likely encountered already today! It will take creativity to solve these problems. In sales, if you don’t have creativity you don’t have a chance.
Here are a few exercises I found online that can help with creativity. Spend time in the creative arts – writing, poetry, reading, etc. to expose yourself to new thoughts and ways of looking at things.
Grit:
Angela Duckworth defines grit as “Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals”. This goes hand in hand with mindset but top sales professionals have a goal in mind. They don’t just show up, work and see what happen. They have a vision of themselves and their future that drives them in their mindset, their work ethic and their will to win.
Write out your goals. What do you want to have? Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? This will take some creativity to do and, as I can tell you, can take years to truly grasp what your real why is and what motivates you. There are a million goal setting methods and exercises out there and you can check out our resources or find your own but without a destination in mind you are just aimlessly wandering around and, while that can be a great on vacation to a new city, it’s a pretty reckless way to live your life.
Once you have a goal, your passion should inspire you to preserve and your drive towards that goal should kick in. If it isn’t, then that is a good signal that you don’t have the right goal in mind and need to revisit your goal setting.
Organization:
For any of you that have ever seen the movie There Will Be Blood, there is a very famous scene where the main character, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, uses a milkshake analogy to explain how he took all the oil from his advisory. If you and I are in the same sales organization and you have poor organization skills, I will drink your fucking milkshake. That is to say, if you aren’t on top of your CRM, have your callbacks scheduled and your accounts organized then I will and I will close deals down that you simply were too unorganized to follow up on.
Top sales people don’t have their cell phone out in the middle of the day. They don’t have follow ups that aren’t booked in and they certainly don’t have unused time during the day.
My father used to say “people that say ‘there aren’t enough hours in the day’ just don’t know how to use them”.
Write out your intensions and to-do list every morning. These are your top priorities so get time scheduled in for each of them
Have a schedule and stick to it. If it’s time to cold call, get out of your emails. If you’re in a meeting, turn off your cell phone. Focus, like an adult.
Have a routine. Success is predictable and repeatable. Gym, breakfast, prospecting, admin. Shit you should be doing every day so set a routine.
Get rid of low impact activity. Especially during working hours. Proposals, list building, etc can all be done outside of prime calling hours. Put high impact (customer facing) activities as a priority in your day
Top sales people simply get more done in a day because they know how to manage their time effectively. Average salespeople have large gaps in their day where they are busy but not productive. Never confuse the two.
Some of the more astute of you out there may have noticed that our list doesn’t list the typical things you might see on a sales checklist. Things like, discovery, closing, prospecting, etc. While those skillsets are all vital to selling it isn’t what separates the top from the rest.
What truly separates the top form the rest is character, belief and behavior. Know what to do and having the discipline to do it are two wildly different things. As Ronnie Coleman says, “everyone wants to be a body builder but don’t no one wan to lift no heavy ass weights”
