Recently I’ve been working with a number of salespeople making sales calls that stretch across a wide range of industries, and one thing stands out — Sales Leadership.
With each person with whom I’ve worked, it is amazing to me how the demonstration of sales leadership makes a huge impact. This is true when working with an existing customer and when courting a prospect.
At the core of sales leadership is trust — the level of trust the other person places in the salesperson and the level of trust the salesperson has with the customer.
Trust opens doors by allowing for meaningful information to be exchanged.
What makes the meaningful information so critical is the sales leader knows what to do with it.
I’m not talking about blurting out an answer or some sort of textbook answer. What I’m talking about is the ability for the salesperson to take the meaningful information and build on it even more.
Sales leaders are not afraid of hearing bad news, and they’re not afraid of hearing information or questions they don’t have an answer to. No, they relish both as an opportunity to dialogue more with the prospect and to engage them in an even deeper discussion.
All of this discussion allows for one very simple thing to occur.
The salesperson is able to deepen their level of engagement with the customer and as a result uncover more opportunities to assist them.
At the core of sales leadership and the development of trust is a genuine level of interest in being able to assist the customer or prospect.
A sales leader understands the challenges of the customer from their perspective and not solely with the objective of maximizing a sale.
This does not mean a sales leader is not going to seek to maximize the sale, but they will do so knowing how the sale will truly help the customer.
Copyright 2013, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
One Response
Hi Mark,
Your point is valid. Sales leadership is essential, and makes a significant difference in the performance of the team. All that said. It’s still like seeing a rainbow. You rarely see quality sales leadership, but when you do, you know it’s probably going to rain.
Ian