Today I received this great email from my friend Nick Moreno at the National Sales Center. It was great info and thought that my AR friends would enjoy it!
Are You Focused On Being The Perfect Sales Rep?
In sales, we search endlessly for perfection. We want to either be the perfect sales rep or we want to hire the perfect sales rep. We strive to find the perfect sales process and conduct the perfect sales meeting. Unfortunately, we never find the perfection we are after because it simply doesn’t exist.
Ask a group on one hundred sales reps who is the best rep, and every hand will be raised. Even that fellow in the back row, who’s at forty percent of quota, will raise his hand. However, ask them who is the perfect sales rep and few, if any hands will be raised. Those that decide to raise their hands only do so to take advantage of an opportunity to impress their superiors.
If there were a perfect sales rep, what qualities and traits would they possess? Your view may hold that they are a multitasking machine focused on selling twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Since they only pursue perfectly qualified prospects, their close rate would be one hundred percent. This list could go on forever but it’s all folly. There is no such thing as the perfect sales rep yet too many reps and managers believe such a person exists.
This false belief cause many problems and I’ll soon explain them to you but first, lets take a serious look at what selling is and isn’t. Selling is an art and not a science. In science, the outcome is always predicable. One plus one will always equal two. However, selling is an art and in art, nothing is predicable. A painting may be beautiful but it will never represent perfect beauty to all those that view it. There is no such thing as perfect beauty in the human world. Since selling is an art, there is no such thing as the perfect sales rep.
Since too many believe in the lie of a perfect sales rep, they measure themselves and others according to that standard. We see this in Performance Reviews. Managers don’t feel they’re doing their job unless they have some constructive criticism even when evaluating their top producer. Striving to be perfect will crush creativity and risk taking so please don’t go there!
The misguided belief that there is perfection in sales generates a great deal of frustration, anger and disappointment. Far too many highly motivated sales reps measure everything they do against the non existent standard of perfection and in doing so, set themselves up for failure. All this disappears when the standard becomes real. Instead of perfection, sales reps should simply strive to be the best. Not the best they can be be… but the best there is. It may be the best in your office, region, company or industry. What ever it is… strive to be the best.
What are you doing to become the best sales rep? Most reps will say they plan to work harder. Although that’s a noble gesture, few actually do it and those that do will probably still fall short of their goal to become the best sales rep. I’ve never seen a “Hardest Working Sales Rep Of The Year” award.
When all is said and done, sales is an art that requires skills. Learn and use sales skills and you’re well on the road to becoming the best sales rep. The best way to acquire those skills is through sales training. Those that strive to be the best know that sales training is not a one-time event. For them, sales training is a career long campaign. Are you up to the challenge of being the best?
Thank you for this opportunity to express my beliefs about the perfect sales rep. Please get in touch with me if you run across that leprechaun. Until then… forget being perfect… but focus on being the best.
Go out there focused on being the best sales rep!
I wish you great sales success! ~ Nick
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Regina P. Brown
Califiornia Coast & Country Homes, Inc.
