Helping Sales Reps Maximize their Unique Strengths

10 minutes read

All of us are born with certain personality traits. It is because of these traits that we all develop unique and natural inclinations in our lives. Like,

Some of us are introverts
Some of us are extroverts
Some of us are analytical and rational
And some of us are highly emotional

Each of these personality traits have their advantages and disadvantages. I’m sure your sales reps also have some natural inclinations which make them good in some aspects of sales and not so good in others. While we can’t change our natural personalities, we can definitely work on strengthening our natural skills in order to improve our potential at work and perform better

So, here we discuss various kinds of unique personalities/ skills that you might find in your sales reps and how can you strengthen those skills in order to maximize their sales potential and impact at work

1. The Passive Salesperson

These are the most common types of salespeople that one would find in any company. These people are often passive and they make themselves available to the people who may need their service. They are easy to contact and can answer any question about your product or service.

These salespeople usually avoid taking risks. This means that they do not take any chance on the prospective customers who might reject their sales pitch. Their sales efforts are usually focused on people who know what they are looking for.

And they make their customers comfortable by giving them enough time to think about their potential purchases. Their reliability is their strength.

How to maximize their potential? These sales reps can provide your business with competent and steady performance. Coach them on how to narrow down on the potential customers who are already looking for a product like yours.

Train them on positioning your product before the right customers at the right time so that they can get the sale. Teach them to be a bit assertive with potential customers. Help them practice soft coaxing in order to get the potential customers to make the purchase decision after having given them enough time to decide.

2. The Rational Salesperson

These salespeople have a rational personality and they have strong analytical skills.

They have the ability to reason their way through any kind of difficult sales objections and close the sales successfully. They can develop good and long-lasting client relationships.

How to maximize their potential? If you are into a business that demands building long-lasting and strong customer relations then this kind of salespeople are great for your business. Building a long-lasting relationship is not easy. There are going to be a lot of roadblocks at every step in the sales process.

Enable your rational sales reps with the various sales techniques that they can use to

Overcome the customer objections
Negotiate and create win-win situations with the customers
And make themselves and your company/ product trustworthy for the customer

3. The Closer Salesperson

These are “born salespeople” because they operate with a single goal in mind– “Always be selling”. They have a personality that is bold and outgoing. These people are goal-oriented.

They tend to be persistent and work really hard to close sales deals. They have got the passion and enthusiasm to reach out to new customers. And they have mastery of various sales closing techniques which aid their sales efforts.

How to maximize their potential? You can help them practice a bit of patience and develop their active listening skills so that they can understand customers’ pain points.

Always aiming only to close sales or push the customers towards closing is not ideal.

They also need to understand when to prioritize the customers’ needs over their own sales goals. Coach them on how to give more value to the customer's priorities and build a long-term relationship with them.

4. The Consultant Salesperson

Consultants bring the qualities of a closer with the ability to build strong customer relationships. They are well-rounded salespeople who know how to close a deal and build relationships at the same time.

They aren’t afraid to solve problems for their customers and to go the extra mile with incentives in pursuit of a long-term relationship. They are skilled at tailoring their sales pitches to each customer’s needs.

They are active listeners who are patient with their customers when it is required. But they can also be aggressive with customers who are on the cusp of saying “yes” to a deal.

How to maximize their potential? Train them how to analyze the customers (customers’ mindset) at each step of the buying process and craft a strategy accordingly in order to get them to close the deal quickly and keep the sales cycle short. Teach them how to diligently negotiate and overcome customer objections.

5. The Scripted Salesperson

The scripted salespersons are comfortable using one best sales script or sales pitch on every customer. That script or pitch is something that has worked well for them over and over again and so they have made it their comfort zone.

This way, they reliably provide the same buying experience to every customer and this produces a very uniform brand appearance.

How to maximize their potential? If the brand of your company itself is a big part of your sales, then this kind of sales reps are your strength. While they could use the same sales script or sales pitch (with the same format) that worked for them, encourage them to try customizing a few words and actions here and there according to the buyer and the sales interaction.

And encourage them to think about whether offering a special incentive or a special sales discount or offer could move a customer to make a purchase.

This way, while they still operate in their comfort zone, with their script, they can strategically make a few modifications here and there to appeal to the buyer that they are selling to.

6. The Opener Salesperson

These people are experts in bringing in a lot of potential leads. They make strong efforts to

Reach out to new people on social media
Make cold calls
Send informative and catchy emails to catch the attention of the prospective customers
Deliver the initial pitch
And send follow-up emails

Overall, they ensure that they get the undivided attention, interest, and enthusiasm of the prospective customers and enter them into the sales cycle.

How to maximize their potential? This kind of sales reps are a boon for you when you want to fill your sales pipeline with potential and good-quality contacts.

While they have the enthusiasm to create new contacts and enter them into the sales cycle, you can teach them how to target good-quality leads. Coach them on what questions can they ask to qualify a lead as a potential lead. Because feeding the pipeline with any lead would only result in wasting of time nurturing those unqualified leads.

For example, if your product is worth $500 and a lead who is entered in your sales pipeline has got a budget of only $200 then it is a waste of time to spend time nurturing that lead right?

You could also help them improve their follow-up techniques. This helps them to keep the potential customer thinking of your product even after the initial contact and makes their purchase more likely.

7. The Networking Salesperson

These salespeople are extremely good at networking. Meaning they actively seek situations where they can meet new people and make new connections, both expected and unexpected. They actively attend,

Industry events
Exhibitions
Conferences
Meetups
And happy hours

to meet new clients. As networkers, they work well as part of a sales team, where they can take charge of making new connections that others can nurture into relationships.

How to maximize their potential? While they are enthusiastic to meet new people and form new connections, teach them,

How to identify the potential candidates to form connections
How to strategically nurture that contact with follow-ups in order to develop it into a long-lasting relationship

8. The Scorekeeper Salesperson

The scorekeeper sales reps primarily focus on how many sales they make. They thrive in commission-based sales positions. Once they close a sale, they tend to immediately shift their focus to closing another sales deal.

How to maximize their potential? While they are interested in keeping the score of the number of sales deals that they have closed, encourage them to also work on building and maintaining long-term customer relationships.

If they’re motivated by the score-keeping aspect of sales, then ask them to also try tracking other numbers such as,

The number of new connections they make
The number of presentations they give
The number of follow-up emails they send to the customers
The number of customer accounts with whom they have formed good and long-lasting relationships

9. The Specialist Salesperson

Specialist salespeople know everything there is to know about a particular product (product line or a particular feature in the product) of your company. They have a precise understanding of who it can help and what problems it can address.

Specialists are often ready to explain everything about your product to a client, but sometimes this might impede listening to the client’s point of view.

How to maximize their potential? Specialists would be greatly appreciated by the customers who can truly see the depth of their knowledge and their passion for the product that they are selling.

However, not all customers would like it when the sales rep goes on and on about the product rather than paying attention to the customers’ needs. So, train your specialists on,

First, listen to their customers
Understand the customers’ psyche
Analyze their level of understanding of the product
And then, first, present only that information which would be of interest to the client

And when the client slowly becomes aware of the basic technicalities of the product and seems interested to learn more about it in-depth, then the specialist can present more details

10. The Conversationalist Salesperson

Conversationalists are those salespeople who know how to engage potential customers in warm, friendly, and compassionate conversations. Due to their good communication skills, they often succeed in making a good first impression on the clients.

Their priority is to make customers feel welcomed and comfortable to make purchases and return for more business.

How to maximize their potential? While conversationalists excel in their sales conversations, they often struggle to close sales because soft and free-flowing conversations are their priority. They often don’t try to persuade their customers into making purchase decisions.

As their manager, you can help them standardize their conversations with a script or list of points that can help them streamline their customer interactions. Also, tell them that it's okay to softly push the purchase decision on customers while keeping in mind that their buying experience is not spoiled.

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Published on Fri May 13 2022