THE SUCCESS DRIVERS OF TOP SALES PROFESSIONALS

Being “in the zone” is typically a sports reference, yet it’s also relevant to being most productive and successful in work and in life. The zone is a state of total focus and effortless performance where your knowledge and skill merge into dominating your challenge or opponent.

Sellers in the zone of sales success are driven to succeed. This success then builds more success and it may seem as if they have a magic touch or are just lucky. But, as Thomas Jefferson said, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”

Action is necessary for being in the zone and succeeding. For example, most sellers will intellectually agree with the tools, steps, and behaviors outlined in this book. They will agree that the earlier list of activities is necessary. What happens next with that knowledge—action or inaction with the information—is the difference between mediocre and stellar performance later.

The Will factor is complex, consisting of several components that I call the Success Drivers. The model is called Success Drivers™ because strengthening these components (the Drivers) propels you forward to actions, results, and success.

In studying the top performers among the thousands of sellers I have worked with, I have noticed four common Drivers that help explain why some sellers do what is necessary to succeed, and others don’t. (I say “help explain” because the dynamics of sales success and the uniqueness of each seller makes this topic neither as simple nor as formulaic as presented here.) The Success Drivers model shown in Figure 11–1 illustrates the Drivers—Integrated Beliefs (Self, Value, Role), Goal Transparency, Initiative, and Emotional Intelligence—and their relationship to each other.

Success starts at the center of the model with Beliefs, a multifaceted internal component that integrates the beliefs you have in yourself, in your role in sales, and in the value of your solution.

They are called Integrated Beliefs because they combine together into one Driver that also has connectivity with the other three Success Drivers: Goal Transparency, Initiative, and Emotional Intelligence.

The four Drivers explain the Will factor that is often the differentiator between top performers and everyone else. Top performers have passion for what they do and what they sell, they are focused on their goals, they are proactive in their efforts, and they do not let their emotions negatively impact their activity level.

Let’s look at the Drivers in more detail.

Integrated Beliefs

Confidence is often cited as a key characteristic of a top performer. Does this confidence come from their success or has their success created the confidence? Probably both. Confidence comes from the internal beliefs in who they are, what they do, and why their solution is valuable to others.

Integrated Beliefs are three beliefs that combine to drive Goal Transparency, Initiative, and Emotional Intelligence. Their integration positively or negatively impacts their effect on your actions.

Belief in Self Belief in Self is self-confidence in your abilities and skills to be successful. The value you personally bring to your buyers and customers is reflected in this belief. You are integral to the total value your buyers receive when they buy from you.

To gauge the level of belief in yourself, answer these questions:

• Do you want to be successful?

• Do you see yourself being successful in sales?

• Do you believe that you have the skill or can develop the skill and attitudes to be successful?

• Do you believe that you give value to your customers and prospects in the sales process and beyond?

Confidence in yourself affects your buyer’s confidence as well. Busy buyers may identify lack of confidence as weakness, inability, or just a plain waste of their time. If they sense your lack of confidence, they won’t feel confident in you or your recommendation.

Belief in Role Belief in Role is the belief in your sales role and the value of that role to your company, the buyers, and yourself. As mentioned in the Introduction to this book, reluctant sellers may have a low belief in the value of selling, which impacts their actions and activities needed to succeed.

A strong belief in your role leads to feeling good about what you do.

To gauge the level of belief in your role, listen to how you describe what you do. Do you describe it as a “just” position? “I’m just in sales.” Or, “I’m just the person peddling this stuff.” Or, “I’m just the liaison.” If you don’t see that you are integral to the Win³ through your efforts and role, neither will the buyer—nor will your boss.

Belief in Value Belief in Value is the belief in your solution’s value in relation to the cost to secure the solution. Your belief that the solution is worth more than its cost matters. For instance, when a new product was launched during the time I was a distributor for a training company, many of us believed it was a premature launch and that the quality of the solution was not up to the standards that our customers expected and valued.

No matter how much the marketing department and the president tried to convince us of the value and threw incentives at us to sell this new course, many of us continued to sell the old one. Because we did not believe in the value of the new version, we could not sell or relate its value to prospects and clients. Sales suffered.

Have you noticed that it is easier for you to sell some of your products or services than others? If you look closely you might find that you have high personal belief in the value of the solutions you are most successful with. That’s the effect of the belief in value.

Integrated Beliefs are the core of the Success Drivers model and describe the importance of beliefs in who, what, and why. They are reflected in the passion you have for yourself, your profession, and your solution. Sellers with strong integrated beliefs have confidence and are driven to help as many buyers as possible gain access to their solution.

Because the beliefs integrate, when you strengthen any one of the beliefs, you positively affect the other beliefs. The opposite is also true; if any one of the beliefs is low, the other beliefs suffer as well.

Goal Transparency

Goal Transparency means having written goals that are specific, measurable, and visible to you and others.

Strong Goal Transparency is more than being goal oriented or goal driven. Transparency is demonstrated when your goals are visible to you and others in print, in your actions, and in your words. By sharing your goals and the plans to reach them with your stakeholders, you make the invisible visible and add accountability. A regular review of your goals for relevancy also keeps them timely and valid.

Top performers’ goals are transparent. The transparency of their goals gives them stronger accountability to focus on the actions necessary to reach them. They are upfront about what they want to accomplish and if you can help them, great. If you can’t, move out of their way! They know where they are headed and will move obstacles that keep them from reaching their goals.

Goal Transparency is key to strengthening your results, commitment, and the other three Drivers. Chapter 13 outlines a goal achievement process that will help you immediately strengthen your Goal Transparency.

Initiative

Initiative is the self-directed, personal, and proactive energy you spend every day. Those with Initiative focus their energy toward proactive and productive activities. They take Initiative and action to complete what is important.

Initiative is an internal drive that some may call motivation. Because it is internal, only you can motivate you. Contrary to what many believe, others can’t motivate you. Only you can find the motivators that rev up your energy. The complexity of this internal driver makes it difficult for an outsider to determine your internal motivators.

Author Daniel Pink addresses this complexity in his book Drive (River-head Hardcover, 2009). He explains that some are motivated internally to achieve high levels of performance; others are driven to achieve by external rewards. To increase your Initiative, find your personal motivators and then focus on proactive and productive activities to get you where you need or want to go more efficiently.

Top performers take Initiative each day. They face the same priority challenges as everyone else and don’t necessarily enjoy some of the mundane parts of selling—like writing follow-up notes, preparation, and plugging information into the company database—any more than others do. What they do, though, is Initiate action on these nondesirables or figure out a way to get them done through other resources because they know these activities will help them succeed. They focus on the most productive activities and get more done to maximize their time and energy.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the awareness of and ability to manage your emotions and their impact on your actions. The importance of EI is supported by the research of the Gearner Group, which found a 73 percent correlation of EI to sales success.

Selling is a tough career. Rejection and success can happen within minutes of each other and the roller coaster of emotions that comes with sales is not always easy to ride. Strong Emotional Intelligence leads to consistency in action and emotionally intelligent sellers don’t let their emotions negatively impact their actions.

“Most salespeople know what to do,” says Colleen Stanley, author of Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success (Amacom, 2013). “However, during stressful selling situations, emotions take over and skills go out the window. Salespeople with good emotion management are able to consistently execute effective skills and behaviors, even with the toughest prospects.”

Colleen characterized EI as “knowing what you are feeling, why you are feeling it, and how it affects how you show up.”

Important to a strong EI is acknowledging success and progress for your efforts and goals. EI is connected to Goal Transparency and Initiative. As Daniel Pink writes in Drive, “On days when workers have the sense they’re making headway in their jobs, or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles, their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak.”

Emotionally Intelligent sellers are aware of their response to outside influences and don’t let obstacles, bad days, negative experiences, and rejections stop them. They keep on productively and proactively making decisions and doing what is necessary, even when they don’t want to. Their awareness of and ability to manage their emotions in a productive manner is key to their success.

How do these Success Drivers play out in the real world of sales? Sellers who use their personal Skill and Will to access their unique strengths and preferences succeed when others don’t.

Some sellers are more focused on their Skill while others have enough Will to drive them to act and make sales. The long-term high producers use a balance of Skill and Will to consistently achieve their goals. They access their unique strengths and their expertise to add value in each conversation. They know that they are a key component in the sales process and that they can make every conversation count.

Strength in the four Success Drivers—Integrated Beliefs, Goal Transparency, Initiative, and Emotional Intelligence—drive the right actions that propel you to results and success. If your drive for success is not as high as you would like, you can build each of these Success Drivers with the tips at the end of this chapter.

Skill and Will are the ingredients to success in any endeavor, and both are in your control.

Whether or not you were a “born” sales pro doesn’t count as much as whether you are willing to develop yourself into one.