The Ultimate Sales Professional Part II – You Changed the Game!

You!

Make your commitment to be the best!  Last week we talked about the skills and attributes of the very best sales professionals.  This week we take it a little further, and go even deeper!  You can actually change the game.  This post is access to a ton of information that will help you!

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We continue to revisit this important topic on an in-depth basis.  This is where the differences are made!

In Part I we took an in-depth look at the traits of the Ultimate Sales Professional. If you missed it, you can access it by clicking here: Black Sales Journal 3/23, The Ultimate Sales Professional – Is it You?.

Part I looked at the traits that made this individual so highly desirable for sales managers and customers alike. Part II will look at the activities, which set this individual, apart. I am not saying that by doing these items you will be the ultimate sales professional, but it will be well on the way.

These activities exceed the norm for many sales professionals. Being Black and in sales means you have to always be on top of your game.   This group of actions is not over the top. These items represent what one must do to be the ‘best of breed’.  This is a chance to see how these items, applied well, can make an individual the crème de la crème of sales professionals.

Activities of Sourcing Prospects

Finding that next customer is something every sales professional has to think about on a daily basis.  This activity is the most important activity a sales professional will ever have. If you have this activity solved, you are well on the way to professional success.  This is the way the ultimate sales professionallooks at sourcing prospects:

  • Know Your Prospecting Formula and Ratios. This individual, the ultimate sales professional, knows how many prospects he or she really needs to be successful (Black Sales Journal 2/28, How Many Prospects Do You Really Need). This sales professional grades his or her prospects and recognizes how much time to spend on those with the highest grades while at the same time knows the ratios and law of large numbers.
  • Be accomplished at getting past the gatekeeper. This professional knows how to get past the gatekeeper and when that does not work as desired, knows how to get around the gatekeeper (Black Sales Journal 2/17, Getting Past the Gatekeeper).  Using these techniques on the phone and in person swells the prospect numbers creating a cache of potential proposals that his/her colleagues covet.
  • Be resourceful in the prospecting process. This individual knows how to get prospects in ways other than cold calling.  An example of it is that the ultimate sales professional finds prospects by conducting informational seminars not only for the benefit a customer/prospect, and also for his/her own benefit in finding ready-to-buy customers (See Black Sales Journal 3/24, Finding Prospects Through a Seminar).
  • Be an adept networker. This individual is solid in the art of networking. He or she knows that being at the right function with the right people can net leads beyond the normal cold-call.  This was explained in depth in Black Sales Journal 2/21, Networking for the Black Sales Professional.   The effective networking undertaken efficiently will pay dividends when the time is right.

Now that we know the rudiments of how this resourceful individual will find that necessary and continuing stream of prospects that turn to customers, lets take a look at how this individual works with customers.

The Customer Interface – Master It!

Once you have a valued customer, you must recognize that even though the customer can represent a lasting stream of income, almost an annuity, they also require “care and feeding”.  I know that this sounds somewhat abstract, yet think of it this way, and you will also be able to relate it to some things that you need to do on a continual basis.

The Ultimate Sales Professional does this extremely well.  Let’s look at a few of his tactics:

Don’t forget the customer relationship issues discussed in the last post, as these points beckon stronger, more durable, relationships that are founded on value.  (Black Sales Journal 7/15, The Ultimate Sales Professional Part I)

More To Come

Knowing the activities and customer interface techniques that the best would need to be accomplished, you can now rest assured that it does not stop here.  Black sales professionals should embody these traits as your quest for ‘preference’ in the eyes of a buyer is riddled with inequities, including the fact that you will need to be better than your peers.   In the next post Part III (which will post on Thursday 6/13, we will examine the other elements that pull it all together.  Join us as we discuss “where the differences are made!”

Let me know how you receive these and whether the picture is getting clear.

Your comments are welcome. You can reach me at Michael.Parker@BlackSalesJournal.com.