Great sales people have attributes that other professionals, and even some other sales professionals don’t possess.  These attributes make a difference, and give you the ultimate edge.  We will cover three today, and a few more next week.  Internalize these attributes and move to be the consummate sales professional.

1.  Insightful Customer Empathy

The best sales professionals realize that the customer’s plight will spell their success.  Having an insight into the concerns and feelings of the customer may take a little more energy, yet can result in the type of relationships that are enduring and profitable.

Stephen R. Covey said it best in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” (Habit 5).  It has been said many other ways, but this one is the easiest to internalize.  The more knowledge you have about the customer, the more qualified you are to help that customer.  Knowing and understanding gives you the basis for empathy.

The easiest way to think about how your interaction affects the customer is to put yourself “in the shoes” of your customer.  As a customer, you want to have solid communications and a sales professional servicing your business that understands your business, and your businesses situation.

This professional does the following:

• Seeks to understand your customer’s needs and priorities, and is genuinely empathetic because they do understand.
• Knows the customers goals and objectives and works to get fulfillment
• Clearly communicates with the customer, then follows with correspondence for monitoring and clarity.
• Avoids using technical language and jargon that your customer may not understand.
• Allows the sales process to proceed naturally, and does not exert unnecessary pressure.

Empathy allows you to recognize the importance and gravity of many of the issues in the customer’s world, and how they are affected.  It increases the urgency on some matters and decreases it on others, and that allows you to know, as the client knows, what is most important.

Care must be taken not to be artificial in showing empathy, as if your buyer thinks that you are feigning empathy, it will almost seem patronizing. [Read – Black Sales Journal 10/13/2011 – Empathy – Put Yourself in Your Customer’s Shoes]

2. Unshakeable Credibility

Credibility is a requirement of the sales profession.  If you don’t have it, you might need to cultivate it.  Without it you may be in the wrong profession.

As you may have seen in BSJ 4/16/12 – Credibility, You Can’t Buy It, You Have Got To Earn It, one of the most effective tools to help establish credibility is proof sources such as letters of recommendation, accreditations, certifications, and other indications of your professional nature and ability to help customers.  Credibility will help give you confidence.  Armed with these, you can answer the questions about experience, age, and knowledge.

If you are new in the sales occupation, you will eventually have these questions so take the opportunity to prepare your portfolio to house these important items:

• Letter from prominent customers singing your praises
• Certifications and designations indicating technical ability and knowledge
• Your reasons why you should be the customers sales professional

These will help, but the most important display is your own demeanor.

If you are new, you may not have all of these items, but whether a novice or a vet, you still need to look confident and composed no matter what the situation.

Never appear smug but do recognize that you want to portray that the ‘solution’ just walked into the room.  You don’t want to be ‘worshipped’, only believed.  Make solid eye-to-eye contact and put down your electronics, retreating to a reliance on your personal skills.  Remember you listening skills and your ability to deliver solutions…. then sell (BSJ 6/20/2011 -Deliver Solutions…Then Sell).

Regardless, all a Black sales professional can do is to exude confidence, be ultra prepared, and armed with as much ‘ammo’ in the form of proof sources to deal with perceptions that you might have basic faults.

I always think about being on time and not starting out a meeting with an apology.  Way back then, or even before it, I realized that you start from a weaker position if you are ‘begging’ someone’s pardon as the meeting is starting.

3. Enduring Mental Toughness

Many years ago (not that I am sensitive about my age) when I was playing college basketball, I was exposed to an opposing coach named Gene Smithson.  At that time he was the assistant coach at Illinois State University.  He then went on to coach Wichita State University.

His mantra was  “MTXE” or “Mental Toughness Extra Effort”.  What the heck was he trying to do with MTXE?  It was his effort to bring resolve and a take-no-prisoners attitude to his players at both schools.  You should recognize that attitude as a necessity in the sales arena as well.

Mental Toughness is a sales requirement. Whether it is B2B or B2P, there is much to break you down in the world of sales.  Now, throw into the mix that the 3Ps (Perceptions, Preference, and Perceptions) sometimes play a role.

Facing adversity and winning is what all good sales professionals seek.  As a matter of fact, many do it all of the time.  Those who have strong self-belief, unshakeable focus, and consistency of effort while maintaining professional technique and high levels of desire and determination are whom we interpret as winners. Sales professionals who win consistently are usually examples of mental toughness.

When you are mentally tough, nothing stops you from doing your routine; nothing stops you from your 10 or 20 calls per day.  It is what you do, and if they all result in a “no” answer, you realize that there will be more yes answers tomorrow.

In prospecting it is making the additional five prospecting calls per day, with the recognition that the next call could be the “pay dirt” that moves the day from the normal success of scoring on 1 for 10 calls to the very successful 2-3 appointments. There is no area that extra effort will have more impact than the process of sourcing prospects.

You need to build your mental toughness.  If you can recognize that much of the ‘rejection’ that comes during the sales process is not personal.  It just may seem hard to believe this when it is happening to you.  Mental toughness will get you there.  [Read Black Sales Journal 4/21/2011 Mental Toughness, Extra Effort]

I had a meeting with a buyer to discuss adding another line of business to his account.  I felt that I could save him money, and I felt I could make some money for my company and me as well.  He was always an easy person to talk to, and I measured my relationship with him at to be at the highest level.  As his need for the product was high, this might just be a matter of timing.  He was accepting proposals from three vendors in total.

I went to him, presented a ‘death grip’ (a proposal that had price and product that could not be denied) and his response was, “I am going to stay where I am on this one.  You price is good, and I like your organization, but maybe next time.

Almost every business relationship has a limit, and it is usually because of the trust factor.  When the requisite level of trust is absent, the resulting trust deficit might be based on the sales professional, and in many cases, it will be based on the company that sales professional represents. Either way it ‘stops’ the sales process in a way that does not result in any revenue changing hands.

In the case above, the buyer did not have enough confidence in either me, or my organization, to let money change hands.  Obviously this was a learning situation for me.

The Trust Deficit

“Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.”

Zig Ziglar

No one wants to think that they are not trusted, but usually this is not personal …this is business!  You have not necessarily done any wrong, but you may still have work to do getting rid of the trust deficit

This obstacle is seldom meant to beckon that you aren’t trustworthy, it is meant to show the relationship is not as solid and intimate as you thought.  You can overcome this lack of trust, and should not take it personally.

Are You At a Disadvantage?

Black sales professionals you should assume they are at a disadvantage until it is proven otherwise.   Let me explain that.  Being at a disadvantage means that you have work to do.  Assume you do not have all of the trust necessary to close the deal, but the good part is that you are in the game.

Trust is an essential factor to consummate a business relationship, and the raw truth is that when you are Black or another minority, you need to work continuously to make sure that trust is present as you may be lacking one of the most important aspects of a positive business relationship, something I call preference.  If you will remember from earlier of issues of Black Sales Journal, specifically BSJ 12/27/2010 Preference, Prejudice, and Perceptions and Your Customer, and BSJ 12/12/2011 Racial Preference in Action to name an important few, preference is important.  It is at the top, and the bottom, of any business relationship.

Preference is ‘socially’ legal.  Preference is still different from “racial preference” as you will see if you read the above articles.  Racial preference is vexing, and is everything wrong with business.  Racial preference is racial prejudice!

I will speak more on this important item in a moment.

Building Trust

How do you get the trust you need.  How do you generate the most complete relationship?  Well, I am going to point you in the direction of a couple of in-depth articles on building the trustful relationship between you and the customer:

Black Sales Journal 7/11/2011- Deepening Your Customer Relationships – The Holy Grail for the Black Sales Professional

Read this to know how to construct and maintain the strongest relationships.  Remember, relationships are everything.

Black Sales Journal 1/20/2011 – Deepening Your Customer Relationships Part 2

Read this one to gain access to a simple customer profile that you can change as you see necessary, and other tools to help you record and recognize the relationship and its strength.

The Role of Racial Preference

Racial preference is essentially racial prejudice, and there is frankly no other way to state it.  Are you at a disadvantage?  The answer is ‘possibly’.

We need to face the fact that there are many buyers who could care less about your color, and believe in fairness.  Many more believe that they do, but are affected by forces that they don’t even recognize.

That is the nature of racial prejudice.  It is easily hidden from view, and with that in mind I suggest you always assume you are at a disadvantage.

Read about it in the articles I cite, you will recognize it, and learn to make the proper assumptions.

Relationship Building 101

Build a relationship for all of the reasons cited in these posts, and put your energy and resources toward making sure that you cement together a solid, enduring relationship founded in trust.  Deliver on your promises and commitments and you will create the underpinnings of a trusting relationship.

Ask the customer how you are doing…get meaningful feedback from this important relationship.  More in Black Sales Journal 3/12/2012, Ask Your Customer for Feedback.  You will be amazed at how the customer begins to start to develop an affinity for you if you will put yourself on the line like this.

Be the best at what you do, and remember you cannot win without your customer’s trust, and relationships are everything.

Your comments are appreciated.