Print Solutions Magazine, March 2005 -- Strategic Sales

All Generalizations About Salespeople
Are False

It’s time to expand your distributorship. The natural urge is to find someone just like you: hard-working, willing to face the seemingly endless rejections that are part of building a successful account portfolio and an interest in career sales. If you’re motivated by income, you believe that most salespeople also are motivated primarily by money.

On the other hand, you undoubtedly know salespeople who are successful but couldn’t sell filet mignon to a starving person. You shake your head in wonder. Then there’s the salesperson who has no experience in print and, despite lack of technical expertise, outperforms more experienced reps after only a year or two. A third scenario is the sales rep who exhibits professional appearance, social grace, technical knowledge, diligent preparation and faithfulness to the wisdom of sales training gurus—but is hard-pressed even to give product away.

They all are compelling evidence that no foolproof formula exists and that all-purpose truths about salespeople are dangerous. If I had the magic formula for selecting reps, I’d be living a life of luxury in retirement at a Caribbean resort, not writing this column.

An important first step in hiring a salesperson is recognizing that your experiences and biases may not be accurate in judging an applicant. In recent years, the ability to engender trust quickly with buyers has become increasingly important. It’s an attribute for which there is no written test, and there’s no training I know that can hone this personal skill.

A great deal has been published during the past five years about “emotional intelligence,” the ability to read subtleties and nuances in relationships and to be empathetic. Research also demonstrates that sales reps and sales managers are not good judges of candidates for sales jobs. I suspect that much of this myopia is because of the tendency to favor people who are perceived as being like us.

Profound changes in buying behavior and buying motives probably are responsible for the dramatic changes in the attributes of a successful salesperson in 2005. Why has trust emerged as the predominant issue in supplier selection? Because clients want you to handle everything. They want to hand over a file and be done with it until the job is delivered.

A major study of business-to-business sales reps found that the strongest motivators are:

• Self-satisfaction in doing a good job

• Making more money

• Satisfaction in helping customers

Many readers believe that the ability to earn money is the only item of significance to the “true salesperson.” This is undoubtedly the case with some, but it’s not universal. Match the attributes of a new sales rep with the needs of your market and the organizations you want to target. Some of the attributes I see gaining in importance include these:

• The ability to adapt a message to the needs of a particular buyer or situation

• Understanding a customer’s business and its print needs

• Patience, especially in the process of developing new accounts

• Attention to detail

• Good writing and speaking skills

• Ability to handle adversity and rejection

• Ability to articulate an employer’s competitive differentiation

I wish it were possible to publish a sure-fire formula for selecting a salesperson, but all I can do is offer advice about a land mine in the hiring process: Beware of imposing your biases on the selection process. Use your experiences, but remember that you can’t—and probably shouldn’t—be cloned.

Contributing editor Dick Gorelick is an award-winning authority on sales, marketing and business strategies for the printing industry. As president of the Graphic Arts Sales Foundation in West Chester, Pa., he travels extensively, consulting, writing and speaking on sales training.