3 Things Great Salespeople Do When They’re Not Selling.
Becoming a Better Sales Rep — Post #20
Introduction.
As I was reflecting on the importance of taking time off last week, I like to write about something that is not directly related to closing more deals on Fridays. I believe it’s important to take a rest and think about something different than your work.
Therefore, I want to send you in to your weekend with 3 things great salespeople do, when they’re not selling. Maybe, you’ll do some of them this weekend. (:
#1: Great Sales People Have a Personal Life
I remember when I was freshly out of college and applying for jobs. I was so keen on landing an impressive job with a great salary and a lot of prestige. I put everything into preparing for the interviews.
I read everything about my dream employers that I could find. I extensively practiced for my interviews with some peers. I did case studies. And, I did it all of this over 4 months..
During that time, I literally — not figuratively — did not do anything but eat, sleep, and prep for those interviews. I didn’t exercise, didn’t meet with friends, didn’t follow any hobbies.
Well, to my surprise, my interviews all went terribly for a simple reason: I didn’t show any personality. I just showed that I wanted the job but nothing else.
But, in the real world, people need to work with people. You and your co-worker spend a lot of time together. Your personality must fit the company culture. And the person that is interviewing you must have the feeling that you’re a real and likable human being.
And, for us salespeople, it becomes even more important to be conversational and have a personality because it’s part of our job. The skill that differentiates good salespeople from average or poor salespeople is how good we are at building meaningful connections with our clients.
But, to build a meaningful connection with your clients, there needs to be something meaningful about yourself that you can offer.
Your leads will appreciate it so much more to talk about a vacation abroad, about a common interest in movies, or about your shared love for your families.
So, for salespeople, it’s more important than for anyone else in the business to have a private life that you can talk about!
#2: Great Salespeople Dedicate Parts of Their Spare Time to Learning
This one is for you for sure! I mean, you’re reading this blog post right now which means that you’re already interested in personal development and that you’re dedicating some time towards it.
Learning can come in various forms. Maybe, you take sales classes, maybe you read blogs or books, or — what I like to do — you listen to podcasts.
The benefits of educating yourself about your job are endless:
- You’ll just know more about what you do and you become better at it.
- Your peers will notice and you’ll be a valuable source of advice.
- Your superiors will notice that you’re setting yourself up for a promotion.
- You’ll feel more confident in your job.
- You’ll close more deals.
- …
And, it doesn’t need to take a lot of time or effort. It doesn’t even need to be active learning. If you learn one new thing every day by listening to a 5-minute podcast and you commit to implementing what you’ve learned, you will have learned over 300 things in a year. That’s massive.
Some of my favorite sources for learning about sales and business are
Make sure to check them out and, also, to find the ones that resonate the best with you!
#3: Great Salespeople Help Others
You need to be genuine about this. There is no way that this piece of advice will work if you help others with the intention of getting something in return.
And, this is also not about networking.
This is about wanting to be a genuinely good human being and enjoying helping others outside of your sales work.
I spend so much of my spare time with
- Making introductions between people that I think could help each other,
- Helping people with small things like running errands or giving advice,
- Hosting dinners and events that bring people together,
- Checking resumés,
- Being there if someone needs somebody to listen,
and so much more. And, I do it because I love the people around me and because I enjoy being helpful.
And doing this without any expectations has helped me so many times.
People don’t forget if you’re good to them. They remember you and what you’ve done for them. And they return the favors because they genuinely want to.
Most of our early-stage clients for our startup were former friends of us founders. When I applied to Harvard, I had no issue whatsoever finding people to write letters of recommendation for me. When I needed advice on closing a big deal, I reached out to three people with more experience in enterprise sales, and they all offered to speak with me the next day.
Having good intentions and good actions follow them will always lead you in the right direction.
And If You Need More Time to Make Any of These Things a Priority, Free Up Some Time With Resonaid
Resonaid is a tool that provides you with automated and personalized sales messages for your outreach. It helps you to cut down the time spend on outreach from hours to minutes a day. So, make sure to give Resonaid a try.
Access Resonaid via the Chrome Web Store
Resonaid is a tool that helps sales professionals with writing personalized messages for their sales outreach.
We recently released the first version of our product as a Chrome extension in the Chrome Web Store.
As we just went live this summer, you can currently test Resonaid for free and get large discounts by being an early user.
About the Author
Teddy Lange is a co-founder at Resonaid and is responsible for business development and customer experience. Before joining Resonaid, he’s been a Sales Rep and Junior Sales Manager, and co-founded various companies. He’s currently finishing his graduate degree in Public Policy with a focus on communication at Harvard University. Feel free to reach out to him at teddy@resonaid.co.
