Many people hold mistaken beliefs about good salespeople. In an Inc.com article by Geoffrey James, who is writing a book about what great salespeople have in common, we get the antidote to the false beliefs about outstanding salespeople. He gathers six myths, which I am going to set out here, but I should say that I don’t agree with some of them, so I will add my personal opinion to each one. A few months ago I published what I consider the 15 habits of successful salespeople, based on my own view after years of experience in this field.
Myth 1: Great salespeople are extroverts with the gift of the gab
According to Geoffrey James, in today’s market the best salespeople are no longer the ones who talk a lot. Good salespeople today are better listeners than talkers, and they are very careful not to come across as pushy or as smooth talkers. I agree completely: if you really want to know what complaints or needs your customer has, the best thing is for the customer to tell you. (How to know what your customers want before they tell you)
Myth 2: The more educated, the better the salesperson
It is precisely the opposite: talent in sales is inversely proportional to academic qualifications. It is much easier to teach someone with no formal education to sell than to teach an “academic genius” to sell. And the truth is that when a company requires a university degree for a sales job, all it shows is that it has no idea what selling or the world of sales actually is. It’s not that a graduate can’t be good at sales, but teaching them is twice as hard, whatever some people may think. I know this point could spark debate, but in the world of sales the results speak for themselves, and statistically that is how it is.
Myth 3: Great salespeople make excellent sales managers
In sales there is a saying that when you take your best salesperson and make them a manager, you lose a good salesperson and gain a bad manager. I agree up to a point. It is true that many good salespeople are excellent at selling and couldn’t explain how they do it. They would be very poor teachers when it comes to training sales teams. Personally, I have always said that anyone can become whatever they want with effort and hard work, so why not a good salesperson? Of course they can be the best manager in the sales department, among other reasons because, as the saying goes, “a fisherman recognises another fisherman from afar”. What’s more, most of the best salespeople I have known now run the best sales teams. Watch out: even the best salespeople will get tired one day if they don’t get rewards and promotions at work.
Myth 4: Anyone can be a great salesperson
According to Geoffrey, success in sales is mainly based on innate talent, and all the training in the world cannot turn someone without natural aptitude into a great salesperson. I don’t agree with this either. If there was ever anyone with no aptitude for sales, it was me. In fact, I found it very hard to get started because of the introverted character I used to have. More than once I was told it wasn’t for me (I was 18). Once I learned from the best and they taught me the ABCs of selling, I not only won plenty of trophies in this world, but over time I trained great sales teams. So: “There are no bad salespeople, only bad trainers.” That said, it is true that some people are not cut out for sales, but you can tell very quickly, and not because they lack aptitude but because of other flaws in their character that have nothing to do with selling.
Myth 5: Great salespeople want to be promoted
According to Geoffrey, this is a myth: good salespeople don’t seek promotion or management positions. They enjoy the job of selling. And once again, I couldn’t disagree more. If you expect me to do the same thing for ten years while every year I watch incompetent people who know nothing about sales being put into management jobs, we’re in trouble. Everyone wants to grow; in fact, having aspirations is necessary. Every good salesperson’s dream is, in time, to build a sales team in their own image, take over the market completely, earn more money and move forward in their career. Much of the loss of good salespeople in companies comes from not letting them grow professionally. Besides, from around the fifth year a salesperson starts having nightmares at night in which a customer says NO and you can’t win them over 🙂
Myth 6: Good salespeople can sell anything to anyone
For Geoffrey, some products or ways of selling can be a struggle even for a good salesperson. And that’s true: move a good salesperson from field sales to telesales, for example, and they might get lost. As for products, as long as salespeople believe in what they sell, I don’t think there is a product they can’t handle. In the end, a house, books, investment funds, toys or insurance are all sold the same way, as long as you like the product.
Further reading (highly recommended): 15 habits of good salespeople
Featured image: Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
