01608 644144
By Understanding the Typology of Your Sales People You Will Make Your Job Easier
Sales training experts often say that you have to understand sales people before you can manage them. Sales people are a certain type of person to supervise: generally speaking they are extrovert, active, stubborn types and so harder than the average person to manage.
In order to make your management of the sales team easier, renowned sales trainers have tried to develop a typology of personality characteristics that are commonly found among sales people. As with all cases of typology, you must to be careful: not every sales person will fit 100% into one of the three categories.
Type 1: The egotistical narcissist. This sales person is a natural fighter. They want to be better than all the rest and are self-motivated. The egotistical narcissistic sales person is absolubtly convinced that the customer will not want to purchase from them. They therefore see selling as a battle, one in which they must break down the resistance of the ‘enemy customer’ and overpower them.
The egotistical narcissist tends to blurt things out. Instead of finding out information about the customer by asking questions and then listening, they go straight into "selling" mode. They dominate the conversation and the customer can hardly get a word in edgeways. The customer’s issues are relegated to the backburner.
Demonstrations are where the egotistical narcissistic sales person shines with a perfectly planned and delivered show. Over-exaggeration is a regular part of this and this type of sales person is not unknown to drop a clanger.
When Dealing with objections and closing sales this type of sales person does not analyse customer objections, but reacts aggressively. Instead of taking the customer’s concerns seriously and discussing these, the egotistical sales person simply repeats their main selling points. For them, the end of the sales negotiations symbolises the end of the hunt and all that matters is winning or losing the sale. The customer is under huge pressure to buy.
Once the customer has been sold to, the egotistical sales person is no longer interested. Instead of caring for a new customer, they prefer to search for their next client. After sales service simply does not exist for this sales person. They are often very successful. Some customer buy purely because this is the only way to get rid of them. In a market which contains a large number of potential customers, this type of sales person can be successful for a long time period. However, if the number of potential customers is small, as it can be in the capital goods industry or the investment industry, they soon start to run out of customers.
Type 2: The Friendly Type.
They are certain that sympathy is the sole key to selling success. They are therefore always friendly and endearing; and would not think of exerting any pressure on their clients. After just a few years in sales this type of sales person only visits those customers who like to see them.
With a new customer the main priority of the friendly sales person is to establish a strong personal relationship. The business side of things will take second place. They are pleasant, genial - and at the end of the day tedious! They never manage to carry out an exact analysis of customer needs, because it is almost embarrassing for them to get round to doing their actual job - that of selling.
Demonstrations made by this type of sales person are usually long-winded. They include too many personal elements which tend to confuse rather than inform customers.The friendly sales person is a great listener and gives the customer much leaway to object. They find it difficult to differentiate objections that are real to simple excuses and cannot stand up to excuses. Instead of showing persistence, they leave saying: “We can’t do anything right now. I’ll see you again in a few months time.” This type of sales person has distinct weaknesses when trying to close business: they are embarrassed to ask for an order and secretly hope that the customer will buy from them purely because they like them.
It is in the after-sales phase where this type of sales person’s real strength lies. They really take customer satisfaction to heart, so once they have a new customer they will really look after that new customer exceptionally well.
Sales training can help this type of salesperson develop the necessary skills and confidence to deal with objections and with excuses. It can teach them closing techniques. However, this type of sales person is best suited to looking after regular customers. They are a welcome guest of your customers and can achieve a respectable turnover. It would be a mistake to use this type of sales person in customer acquisition.
Type 3: Business-like and authoritarian
This type is seldom found. They view s sales as an intellectual challenge. For them, all that matters are facts and factual arguments and they reject and ignore emotions or pressure. They are convinced that the customer buys the product that provides the best solution to their issue or problem. The emotional side of any decision to purchase simply does not exist for this type of sales person.
This type of sales person is completely prepared when they first meet a customer. They make time for the customer and analyse the requirements thoroughly. They remain cool, business-like and impersonal throughout the meeting. They would never dream of wasting time chatting to the customer.
Presentations are where they really get going, giving the customer a long-winded lecture full of specialist language. They almost sound like a professor because they have mastered their subject. There is no psychological refinement in their method. The business-like authoritarian sales person deals best with genuine customer objections - ie business-like. They handle these by using every argument and piece of information which removes the objection. They have real difficulty with stalling tactics and excuses. These 'objections’ come from the customer's heart rather than their head and this type of sales person has no understanding of this. They therefore lose a lot of orders which were already almost closed. And since to them all buying decisions are strictly logical, they do not like to ask for the order. The customer has to decide for him or herself what is best! A refusal is seen as final, which is why they seldom follow up on a "No".
In the after-sales phase this type of sales person remains correct and impersonal. Any customer placing a second order with them knows they can rely on the fact that it will be carried out to the letter and in a timely manner - nothing more and nothing less. This type of sales person is not interested in establishing any form of personal relationship with their customers. They are best suited to complex capital goods, commercial real estate and technical services sales situations which make use of their strengths. Without sales training to correct their weak areas they will not succeed with any other type of clients.
