Editor’s note: Paul Kirch is CEO of ActusMR Inc., a Fort Worth, Texas, business and sales consulting agency. Kirch can be reached at 214-295-6111 or at pkirch@actusmr.com.
We've all heard someone label salespeople. Perhaps you yourself have uttered the words, “The last thing I want is to deal with another pushy salesperson” or used some other descriptive way of lumping all salespeople together. Labeling and stereotyping is often less about the sales approach and more about how we feel when we’re on the receiving end of a sales call or presentation. But no matter the reason, the feelings we have are often what leads to us believing all salespeople are the same. This simply isn’t true. In fact, the personalities, backgrounds and overall approaches of sales professionals are extremely varied.
If you have a sales team or you’re a salesperson yourself, it’s important to identify what type of personalities are at play. As stated above, labeling is not exactly a fair approach. However, there are some common characters in the sales profession and how these people are developed may indicate how successful they can be for your organization. To put it into context, I’m going to assign characters for each type of personality. As you read, see if any of your colleagues fit these characters and ask yourself how you can help them grow.
Busy Bee
This is a hardworking, very organized individual. They make a lot of calls and are masters at following up with prospects and clients. When they say they’re going to do something, they do it. The challenge with this group may be that they are so busy making calls and following up that they forget to take time to learn more about their client’s business and challenges. They are less focused on relationships and more focused on completing their tasks.
If you want to develop this individual, work with them on asking better questions and teaching them to take time to listen. Help them see it’s not the volume of calls but the quality of the relationships they develop. They are likely already productive but taking action on developing them further can make them superstars.
Loveable Dog
Talk about a loyal individual. They love their clients and will do anything to make them happy. When there are problems on a project, they rush to defend their client. They don’t want to disappoint and may end up upsetting internal staff because of their one-sided approach. This individual was probably a very active prospector and worked hard earlier in their career. Now they are keener on developing their clients and less interested in opening new doors at the same rate they once did. That doesn’t mean they aren’t good at what they do but don’t expect them to be the hunter they once were.
To develop this person, try setting targets for new-account development. Reward them for that and help them understand the importance of their position. In some instances, perhaps they morph into an account manager for higher-level clients. This also may be an individual who needs help building bridges with the operations team. Focus on team meetings and help the Loveable Dog see how hard the operations team's job is. If you can help this person be more empathetic, you can create a lot of loyalty for your company, not just for the client.
Wise Owl
This is one bright individual. They probably have a background in research or operations and understand the challenges their clients face. They are masters of meetings and know how to earn trust as someone who can answer questions and provide great value to their buyers. There’s no doubt that they can perform when the relationship is established or if there’s a meeting opportunity. The one downfall is that they may not be as good at opening doors with new prospects.
Developing them requires a focus on providing them tools to get past the initial call into a new prospect. How do they follow up? How do they engage with someone new? If you have the resources, you can develop a lead-generation program to create warm, qualified leads to help this person succeed.
Smiling Alligator
Having a thick skin is the strength of this character. They’re built to handle rejection. In some cases, they might even be oblivious to the fact that they are being rebuffed. A stern rejection might be followed up with “I’ll try you back next month” or some other such reply. The Alligator keeps smiling and dialing and can be a great asset if you can help them focus on taking time to build relationships and making sure that they are warm in their approach.
Try role-playing to get beyond the niceties they rely on and help them focus on creating real value with their customers and prospects.
Clucky Chicken
This person fears rejection and really takes it personally when they face it. The problem is they often invite it by being too talkative and less inquisitive. If they have a product to sell, they want to make sure that they share every detail of why you should buy. This can lead to a frustrated buyer because the approach is selfish, not selfless.
Help this person work on questioning and listening skills and create an environment where they can gain confidence by practicing internally. They may always take rejection personally but you can help them find creative ways to see each rejection as a learning experience. In sales, every no is that much closer to the next yes so give them the confidence to see that and you can turn the Clucky Chicken into a best-in-show winner.
Friendly Fish
There’s nothing smelly about these individuals. Unfortunately, however, if you put them into a sales situation they are not used to, they might just seem like a fish out of water. Hiring this person without providing proper training may lead to results that are less than stellar, despite their previous accolades or glowing résumé.
Want the Friendly Fish to grow? Feed them insights and help them get to know your products and why people buy them. If they were hired outside of marketing research, how do you plan to give them the tools to understand the why and how behind what you do? To develop them, give them a good training program or let them shadow a project manager. The Friendly Fish can swim to success but not without help.
Serious Shark
Beware the Sharks. This smooth character probably gave you the best interview of your life before you offered them a job. Now you find that you’ve got an underperformer who is making excuses as to why they can’t bring in business. Or worse yet, they’ve proven to be vicious to your team or to your clients. The Serious Shark is not a great fit for selling a high-level service, such as research. They’re less focused on relationships and more focused on getting paid. Ironically enough, however, this individual may struggle to get paid due to the inability to check their ego and focus on learning.
Developing Serious Sharks is hard and may be more of a drain of resources than you want to take on. If you want to try, however, take a very direct approach and map out your concerns. If their skills are what they claimed when you hired them, then find ways to get them on board with a team approach. If they are too focused on themselves to be a team player, ask yourself if it’s worth the investment of time, resources and energy to turn them around. This individual can create a stressful environment so setting the Serious Shark free might feel like a weight is lifted off of your organization.
Lucky Frog
Frogs spend their lives morphing into very versatile creatures. After all, they go from a creature born and living underwater to an animal that can breathe air and live on land. The Lucky Frog is equally as versed at handling change. Perhaps they trained in other areas of business before moving into sales, such as operations, technology or analytics. They can use those skills to their benefit to build rapport and trust with their prospects and clients. When customers have questions, they often come to this individual. The Lucky Frog jumps through hoops for their clients but also does a great job of staying true to their own team. When issues arise, they look for win-win scenarios, doing their best to keep everyone happy. They adapt well to different selling situations and are seen as more consultative, due to their ability to ask good questions and provide solutions or new ideas.
If you want to develop the Lucky Frog, get them into a team environment where they can share with their colleagues and also learn from those on their team. The Lucky Frog will grow with your organization and improve over time, assuming you make them feel respected and recognize their efforts. If not, the Lucky Frog is likely to hop on to the next big opportunity.
A worthy investment
Measuring the success of your salespeople may be as simple as looking at their performance against their quota or targets. If you don’t have such elements in place, you need to determine how you’re going to measure success. More importantly, how are you going to develop them? Each of the characters above can be developed and, with the notable exception of the Serious Shark, doing so is a worthy investment. After all, the cost of hiring a new salesperson can be much higher than developing an existing one. If you don’t have a system in place or someone who can truly develop them, it’s important you find a way to help them grow.
Also, these sales characters are just like the animal character they represent. Not all of them will thrive and survive in a new environment. If they were successful at previous companies but not at yours, there may be reasons why. Why not have an honest discussion with them and find out what they need. Perhaps the Loveable Dog needs to be on a longer leash or the Wise Owl is used to being involved in higher-level meetings. It’s surprising to see how often these conversations just don’t happen. Treat your salespeople with respect and keep the dialogue open. Address your concerns and understand theirs. Working together you can create a really successful place for them to thrive.
I founded ActusMR back in early 2009 to help research firms develop and grow through better sales and marketing. As my focus has moved more and more toward developing sales teams, processes and individuals, I have felt it was time for a brand change. We’re in the process of rebranding our firm as Actus Sales Intelligence. The characters from this article will be featured in our marketing efforts. We want to help provide tools and insights to develop your teams and to give you a platform for success. If you want to be notified of our new site launch or if you have any questions, please contact me at pkirch@actusmr.com.