“We all agree that you are a people person, but we’re looking for a closer not a professional visitor.”
“We all agree that you are a people person, but we’re looking for a closer not a professional visitor.”Every important moment in the life of a salesperson involves asking a prospect to take a step. Each step moves the prospect closer to being a customer. Socially Confident and trained salespeople know how to act and speak in a manner that causes the customer to gladly move through the sales cycle to a buying decision. Confidence contributes to quickly earning trust and increases believability, leading to less buyer’s remorse. Recruiting salespeople with the personality trait of high social confidence is critical.
High Social Drive moves the sales professional into social situations where business relationships are possible. High Social Confidence causes relationship-building actions to occur when in the social situations. Networking with as many people as time allows for the purpose of doing business is the achieved objective.
Layer High Social Confidence on top of High Social Drive and High Goal Orientation, and you have the Peyton Manning of sales; all of the natural talents are in alignment.
This bundle of potential simply needs the training and tools necessary to execute all phases of the sales process in a high activity manner. Teaching and coaching is soaked up like rain on the desert floor.
The level of the top three character traits of honesty, work ethic, and personal responsibility will dramatically impact whether or not the perfectly wired salesperson reaches potential. Without all of the character traits in alignment, the impatient, confident, socially driven racehorse may dabble into too many non-income-producing activities. High confidence will take on the appearance of arrogance. While in social situations, the desire for recognition can lead to life-of-the-party behavior that turns prospects away.
Struggling, Low Socially Confident salespeople timidly tiptoe around the possibilities of the prospect moving forward, creating uncertainty in the mind of the buyer. Prospects sense the lack of confidence in the trying-to-be-nice voice of the low socially confident salesperson. The on-target intuition of the smart buyer senses their lack of belief in the product. Most do not buy. Sales activities slip further behind.
Knowing the level of Social Confidence with certainty is critical while recruiting salespeople.
In my upcoming blogs, we will look at the personality trait, Goal Orientation, and the impact this trait has on executing the sales process.
Blessings upon your recruiting efforts.
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Steve Suggs is a partner at Sales Manage Solutions, a sales consulting firm focused on training sales managers to recruit salespeople and coach them to greatness. You can also read Steve’s sales productivity blog.