During my time as an Independent Financial Adviser with JBI Asset Management, it was commented by some that I possess "The gift of the gab" meaning that I was born with sales skills and that the ability to influence people came naturally. I'm not sure actually if it is necessarily a gift that you are born with, but perhaps more likely a natural ability to express yourself in a clear, concise and positive manner. Some of the more successful sales professionals I know tend to have certain character attributes in common with each other. They are generally..

• Likable and friendly type of people.
• They possess the ability to project their points of view / opinions in a clear and concise manner.
• They can mix well with people from all backgrounds and "speak their language".
• They are mostly ambitious and hard working.
• For the most part, they are also somewhat extroverted and have a healthy sense of humor.

Now of course there are many individuals who can match the above characteristics and yet they do not succeed in sales.

So what makes a successful sales professional then?

Well, in my opinion there are a LOT of characteristics and skills which equip someone to be a top sales professional. Apart from the above general personality traits, there are the following skills / attributes which I will go into detail on later...

1. A strong belief that your product / service is top notch and will be of benefit to your client.
2. A thorough knowledge of your product / service.
3. Time management skills.
4. The ability to read buying signals. Either verbal or body mannerisms.
5. The ability to analyze your own short comings and learn from them.
6. The will to study the art of sales and adopt an open mind regarding closing techniques.
7. The ability to take rejection and never to let it get you down.

I will now attempt to go into each of those points in further detail.

1. A strong belief that your product / service is top notch and will be of benefit to your client.
Enthusiasm is contagious. Probably just as much as laughing and sadness are. It is difficult not to at least smile when you walk into a room full of laughing people. Most of the time in is a subconscious reflex. The very same applies to enthusiasm. This is probably why my most successful year was my first with JBI. It was a new exciting field for me and I had a strong belief that the products we offered were products that would benefit potential clients a great deal and I truly believed that everyone should have some form of life assurance.

This rubbed off I'm sure on to my audience when I first started group presentations to about 50 soldiers at a time. I was animated and I enjoyed sharing my knowledge of the products we had to offer. Now although no one stood up and shouted "Hooray for Alan and his wonderful products", I knew that my enthusiasm had seeped into the pores of most in the group. They would lean forward, ask a variety of questions, some would be animated themselves and start nodding. I only noticed these things after I had observed an advisers presentation who had been in the business 15 years and was truly sick and tired of the same old presentation. His audience was not leaning forward, not one question was asked and they looked as interested as they would have been had they been watching paint dry. The reason being was that they most likely were of the opinion that if the sales person was not enthusiastic about his/her product, why on earth should they be. Not consciously, I'm sure, but I wouldn't mind betting that it was a subconscious reaction to a flat presentation. To be enthusiastic about your product you HAVE to believe in it in my opinion.

2. A thorough knowledge of your product / service.
It is all very well believing in your product and having oodles of enthusiasm, but if questioned, every other reply is "I'm not sure about that but I will get back to you." You are not projecting the image of someone who knows what they are talking about and is a professional in his trade are you? I've been caught out clueless in my early days in front of 50 mean looking soldiers before and I wanted to curl up and die there and then. Needless to say I DID find out the answer to that question and made darn sure I didn't forget it.

A lot has to do with the training policies of the company you are employed for. Some have excellent training schemes, some thrust a manual in front of you and say get on with it. I for example couldn't sell a household contents insurance until I'd passed the appropriate industry exams. This is now law in the UK regarding life insurance products and rightly so. But you need to go a lot deeper than a generic understanding of your field and learn your companies product thoroughly. One huge advantage of this is that when you face 50 soldiers or you are on a one on one sale, you KNOW that you have a better understanding of the products than they do. You feel comfortable you can answer the vast majority of questions and you will come across as a confident professional and not a "umming and ahhhing" cowboy.

3. Time management skills.

You tend to learn these skills the hard way. Well I certainly did anyway.

I covered quite a large area as a financial adviser / area manager in the north of Germany. When I first started out, I would ask a potential client when the best day/time would be for an appointment. "Oh, Tuesday would be fine" came the reply. Excited that I got an appointment I'd duly write it in my diary. The next potential client would say "Wednesday", the next "Thursday" and so on. All of this in the same military barracks / town. Of course I had other appointments as well on the same days however 100 km's away. You can imagine the scene.. Rushing one appointment and then sprinting to my car to make the next in another town. Not only was this a wholly inefficient use of sales time but it used to cost a fortune in fuel. Having had enough of the cost and hassle I decided I needed to get myself organized. I allocated specific days in specific towns and no longer asked a potential client when it would be best for an appointment. I would simply say "Well I'm in the barracks this Thursday or next Monday. Which of those days would be best for you?"

It worked a treat. I would book a full day in one barracks and there was no more mad rushing to another town. What is ironic about this is that your potential client will actually understand that your time is important and that you must be successful in your field in order to only be available on a specific day. You actually gain respect and fears of being "pushy" are completely unfounded. I estimate that by managing your time correctly you can produce around 15-20% more business, purely because you are using your sales time more efficiently.

4. The ability to read buying signals. Either verbal or body mannerisms.
It was my second ever sale and my head was crammed full of all the benefits my companies products had to offer. And BOY, was I going to make sure my potential client knew every single one of them :-) Next to me was my Area manager at the time listening. I thought I did really well. Got all the benefits across and got the sale. With a huge grin I walked out and I say to my manager "Well? how did I do?"

"Alan, you did you an excellent job getting over the benefits but you almost lost that sale you know."
"What do you mean?" I reply, no longer smiling.
"Well after the first 20 minutes you could have wrapped it up with a signature. Instead you went on and on and didn't see the buying signals. The guy wanted to sign and get out of there. He knew he needed it and you almost talked him out of it. I could see he wanted to sign and leave to the Naafi for a pint with his mates..."

My manager then explained to me what he meant by buying signals and that you can really only see them once you gain enough experience. He did point out a few tell tale signs though. Leaning forward and nodding whilst checking his/her watch and the responses to questions you ask. Later I watched a sales video which highlighted how you can tell if you still have some work to do before closing (need to back off for a moment or two)or to go for a signature there and then. The whole theme was presented by a body mannerism expert who really knew his stuff. He used audience participation and had some of audience on stage and told those observing exactly what was going on in the volunteers mind. Normally their arms would be crossed or their legs and they would be kind of slumped in a stool. A clear sign of anxiety and apprehension he went on to say. He also went on to point out classic buying mannerisms such as resting a finger and thumb holding up a head and nodding. Even subconsciously you pick up these signals. The important part in sales is to act on them and not talk your way out of a sale which I have seen happen many times in the past.

5. The ability to analyze your own short comings and learn from it.
I have yet to come across a sales professional who has a 100% visit / sale ratio. Especially in the field of insurance. It can be so frustrating, especially if it is a big contract or you had good vibes about it when you made the appointment. There are times when you do make a "dogs dinner" of it. I've certainly been there, and if honest, most other sales professionals would tell you likewise. The factor that sorts out the average from the top producer when this occurs is that the top producer will run through the sale through his head and analyze it.

Did I miss a signal? Did I use an inappropriate closing technique? Was he just one of those pen holders who never signs anything? Could I have explained Unit Trusts more clearly?

Just some of the questions you might ask yourself. What I'm not talking about is chastising yourself to the point of depression but analyzing mistakes and vowing not to let them happen again. Once, in a moment of madness, I closed with "I can see that you want this.. Sign here please." Arrrgghhh madness! I read the signal but said it out loud. I'm sure he thought I was an arrogant, cocky salesman and although he may well have wanted it he most certainly wasn't going to give the business to someone who thinks they can read his mind and is somewhat arrogant. I kicked myself for that one! Needless to say I never did THAT again.

6. The will to study the art of sales and adopt an open mind regarding closing techniques.
At some stage in every sale you have to ask for the business. Knowing WHEN to do just that is a skill which only experience will tell you as mentioned earlier. There are many closing techniques out there. Some will work for one sales person but not the other so there is no definitive "it's done like this" way to close a sale. I've tried a fair few with varying degrees of success. I actually asked my peers at conferences how they close a sale and then gave their methods a try until I was comfortable with a certain technique. At least I could look back and say that I tried them. I used to alternate between "escalation of yes's" and the "double option close". Another successful method was to ask "So are you happy with that then?" after having gone through the product and cost. This worked remarkably well and yet appears to be so simple. Think about what they can reply. If they reply "no", they will normally go on to say why as the question is formulated in a way that expects an explanation on a "no" answer. Once you know why, you now have an objection which can be overcome. If on the other hand they say "yes" then what they are saying is yes I am happy with the product and the price and there is therefore no reason why I shouldn't have it. I then would say something like "OK. In that case we'll quickly get the paperwork out the way then.." and proceed to get out the proposal forms. It seems so simple but contrast that to "Would you like this life insurance policy then?". I know which one I got more success from :-)

Many sales professionals are far too timid when it comes to asking for business.It is as if some of them are in fact embarrassed to ask. They will umm and ahh and procrastinate and end up talking themselves out of a sale. These sales people normally do not have a heart felt belief that their product or service is of value and are rarely successful.

7. The ability to take rejection and never to let it get you down.
Well if you've read this far I'm impressed :-) You may notice I still have a lot of enthusiasm for the subject of sales and tend to ramble on a bit. Anyway...

No one on this earth likes rejection. Whether it be from the girl you've had eyes on since you were a kid and finally popped up the question of a date which was rejected, or the fact that your potential client simply didn't want or have an interest in your product. How people react to this varies wildly. I know some who became withdrawn and miserable after having 5 appointments with only one sale. They would talk about jacking it all in and working outside sales and generally mope around. They are sometimes the very same people who not long before had come to a meeting with huge grins as they had been the companies top producer for that particular week and all was wonderful in life. You get cold spells and it is a fact of sales life. I will never forget a phase I went through where having been consistently a top 3 producer on a monthly and weekly basis, one week nothing went right and I was close to bottom. Nobody wanted what I had to offer and it did get depressing I have to admit. My peers at the next meeting would comment "What's up with you Alan? Had a rough week I see." I shrugged it off but it can get you down if you let it. My answer to this was to read one of those "pep you up", "I Can! I Can!" books which I normally scorn at due to the sheer "over the top" content of most of them.

I didn't read these books to learn how to go to the toilet and bash myself with a newspaper screaming "I can!" but I read them because they gave many examples of people who were down and out and pulled themselves together to become huge successes. These kind books in my view contain a lot of rubbish, BUT they can indeed give you inspiration. You've got to be able to shrug off rejection. If not, you will be one of the millions who try sales for a year or more commonly less and just can't handle it anymore and move on.

That pretty much covers my personal thoughts on sales. I still have fond memories from my time as a sales professional and would definitely consider moving back into sales if the product and employment package were to my satisfaction. E-mail me if you or your company could use an experienced sales professional with the drive and motivation to be a top producer and you are based within reasonable commuting distance of Hannover, Germany.

Current employment status:
Still seeking a new challenge in the Hannover, Germany area!