Modern Selling: Challenge Yourself to be Great (4 Things to Do)

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The stereotypes of what makes a great salesperson – a “silky charmer,” a “smiler and dialer,” a “closer” etc. – are really not characteristics of top sales performers anymore.

In fact, it probably makes sense to retire the term “salesperson” altogether, as it has become too corrupted with negative connotation to be useful to describe the kinds of professionals companies need to represent their products and services and drive top line results.

A term I prefer (which I partially borrow from Brent Adamson’s excellent piece on the topic) is “Challenger Rainmaker.”

Challenger Rainmakers challenge everyone in their orbit – customers, prospects, colleagues, their managers, and above all else themselves to be their absolute best selves every day in every way by focusing on these Four Things:

#4. Relationship. Our Challenger Rainmaker comes to each and every interaction – whether it be in person, on the phone, via email / text / social media – from a profound place of empathy and respect for their prospects and clients.

While of course upbringing has the most pronounced impact on this personal characteristic (is there anything we more fundamentally learn from our parents?), company leaders and managers that model these values greatly influence the likelihood of their importance being stressed at the level of prospect and client interaction.

And with authentic relationships arrived at from a place of integrity and respect, our Challenger Rainmaker then focuses on…

#3. Process. Directing a decision-making process that moves, in the words of legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, at a “quick, but unhurried speed.

This means that every communication is concluded with the “What are the Next Action Steps?” questions, along with elegantly but firmly insisting that the answers to those questions be given in a timely and complete manner.

Those answers can be as simple as agreeing to the time for the next call, and as complex as organizing multiple parties to move with velocity through the complex process of getting from a meeting of the minds to a signed agreement.

While empathy may be the guiding emotive state for the relationship mindset of our Challenger Rainmaker, when it comes to process “Tough Love” is.

Our Challenger Rainmaker is relentless, both because he or she cares, and because they believe in the value of what they are doing, which leads to their next characteristic…

 

 

2. Our Challenger Rainmaker gives Consultative Value-Add in each and every conversation.

This is a commitment made on many levels – of the genre that “There is No Tomorrow” and so with everything we do and say our goal is to be an Additive Force for all who we meet.

And it is a commitment to work and study long and hard to Know Our Stuff, and thus be able to actually add value.

Knowing our stuff, in our intensely competitive modern environment, is both a lifelong and an “after hours” commitment – i.e. we always should be learning and doing so beyond our “Nine to Five” job descriptions.

And when Our Challenger Rainmaker combines a deep commitment to relationship, with professional process, with being of the mindset to add value always and to learn and grow well beyond the 40 hour work week, what naturally follows is…

1. A Burning Desire to Win. To win for a lot of reasons, because we believe in the value of our products and services and the mission of our organization, to win because we deserve to for all of our hard work and to win because winning is a lot more fun than losing.

Winning, from a place of relationship and hard work, and accomplished through professional process that has real value-add in and of itself…

…heck is there anything in business sweeter than that?

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