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ONE does not choose the path of a salesperson, it just ‘comes’ once there is a realisation it is easy to capture people’s attention about what you are passionate about and that you can make money off it.
In my opinion, the typical traits of successful sales people are charm, ambition, empathy, persistence and optimism. The last one was exactly what I needed on the morning before my interview with sales guru, Brian Tracy.
I woke extra early that day to look a little more ‘fashionable’ in order to meet the man who had so inspired and motivated me early on in my sales career.
Mr Tracy has advised more than 10,000 businesses across 60 countries, conducted approximately 5,000 workshops and seminars, authored more than 60 books in 42 languages and created 500 audio and video tutorials all in order to enhance personal performance and success.
Early in my career, I used to hop into my powder-blue Chevette and pop in his sales tapes in order to motivate myself to sell. After arriving at yet another intimidating multi-storey building, I would whisper with raised fist: ‘I can do this’ before heading up the lift to my next cold call.
Every one of my sales jobs had targets but I would never be satisfied with just hitting them – I wanted to be at the top. My persistence and locked-in ‘eagle focus’ would give me an advantage because ‘no’ was never an acceptable answer.
I got used to rejection and never took it personally, at first anyway, although when doors are slammed over and over again it is hard not to develop a complex. I fell in love with my clients and they felt that I really cared and they put their trust in me. That is the most important step in relationship-building.
I didn’t always know these skills and my success in selling has been attributed not only to the 20 years of selling but the numerous brick walls I have hit and the new skills I often sought out in training through various mediums – seminars, articles, tutorials, audio tapes, training workshops and video tips – on how to develop that client-customer relationship.
Before conducting the interview I told Mr Tracy how he had helped educate both my mother and me about business matters through his books and tapes, and that I was originally from Winnipeg, and how I was excited to interview him because we are both Canadian.
He told me his mother was also from the same city but then stopped the small talk right there and wanted me to get straight to the point and ‘hurry up’ with my questions. He has no time for bull or baloney and neither, nowadays, does the modern, well-informed and astute company executive.
‘Remember the slammed doors’, I told myself, as I carried on regardless and appeared to make a small impression. He even shared one of my questions, about a change in selling strategies as a result of the internet’s arrival, with the seminar attendees.
“Before the internet people did not have the access to knowledge and they often looked to the sales person to provide it,” he explained. “Nowadays, people are probably more knowledgeable than the sales executive.
“However, people always buy in the same way and always will if they like and trust the person they are dealing with and feel they will be much better off as a result. That’s it!
“The most important thing to understand is how we (the sales person) can improve their (the client’s) life. There are many products out there that don’t work because they do not solve any given customer’s problems or satisfy their requirements.
“I have teams that work on my products to gain trust and how to maintain it. I offer free samples so that people can try and test what’s on offer and then provide unconditional guarantees of satisfaction. You always need to provide high quality and good customer service … that has never changed.”
When asked what type of character traits make the best salespeople he highlighted two – ambition and persistence. People need the desire to be successful and the ability to persist with their endeavours, no matter what happens.
He said that he had conducted seminars in 70 different countries and he believed the people that attend are universally the ‘most ambitious people’ in their communities. Top salespeople, entrepreneurs and even people who own and operate multi-million dinar companies sit in the front row and take notes because they are hungry to learn new skills to enable them to be more successful.
He is full of facts. For example, he said that when researchers interviewed the latest self-made billionaires of the legendary Forbes Rich List there were 1,845 billionaires recorded.
Out of that, there were only 72 ‘unicorns’, the name given to entrepreneurs who have gone from zero to a billion in wealth in only three years. He believes they exist because of ‘hard work and self-discipline’ but their foundation was ‘persistence’.
The formula to success appears to be that old chestnut of advice; if at first you don’t succeed, you try and try again and accept there will always be temporary setbacks and mistakes to learn from.
Has my life changed after meeting Brian Tracy? No. But his wisdom remains useful and the acknowledgement that people are nowadays far better informed is imperative if we, as sales people, are going to be useful to clients as well as successful.
Mr Tracy was invited to Bahrain by Leaders Institute for Training and Development. Managing director Ghaleb Al OraibiI must share my conviction that people who want to be successful need to seek wisdom from the people that have already ‘made it’.
