Sales professionals are among business owners’ greatest assets.  These talented and tenacious individuals advance the frontline of a business in the marketplace.  Their work is vital to the success of the businesses they serve.  Unfortunately, these individuals are becoming increasingly difficult to find.  The sales occupation continues to change from the influx of sales representatives into the workforce.
 
In recent years, the sales occupation has sustained a different kind of salesperson, which I refer to as the sales representative. While there are several types of salespeople, there are but two fundamental classifications of salesperson—the sales professional and the sales representative.  The difference between these groups is important for business owners and sales managers to understand, especially if they are interested in growing a business by acquiring new accounts. 

Most business owners and sales managers cannot distinguish a sales rep from a sales pro.  Unlike other professions such as accounting, the profession of sales is not formalized; there is no required certification process, and therefore, no criteria defining the differences between the levels of proficiency existing among those in the profession.  While these two groups—reps and pros—perform many of the same functions, the differences between them account for many of the problems business owners have in growing their businesses.

Drawing the Line

The difference between sales reps and sales pros can be expressed in terms of a degree of quality.  Sales reps will present your products and services to prospective customers, identity, qualify, and follow-up on sales opportunities.  They will create presentations, schedule sales meetings, and, in the process, occasionally receive a sale.  The sales of the representative are incidental to their work, which is more mindless (as of a routine) than it is mindful (as if engaged in to ensure the fulfillment of an objective).   By contrast, the sales of the professional are orchestrated results of his/her work, which is thoughtfully pursued with the intent of achieving a specific result. 

Vision, preparedness, investment, and skill provide categories for good examples that can more clearly highlight the differences between sales reps and sales pros. 

Vision

There are several main objectives in most sales sequences, including finding and qualifying prospective clients, scheduling appointments with prospective clients, profiling and identifying leveraging points, clarifying urgency to buy, and obtaining next-step commitments with a prospect.  As selling becomes complex, additional steps are required in order to achieve a sale.  Identifying and having a vision of the often arcane, prospect-specific steps can challenge a salesperson.  And an initial vision must often adapt in order to accommodate new steps as they arise in the pursuit of sales.  

Sales reps lack vision.  They give little or no thought to modifying general sales procedures.  Sales reps are not concerned with maximizing the effectiveness of their endeavors.  Sales professionals consistently strive to gain insight and advantages into sales situations and opportunities to ensure the success of their mission to convert potential sales into actualized sales.  

Sales reps can develop their vision and improve their sales by thinking more deeply, questioning, not settling with their assumptions, and reasoning the “why,” “how,” and “what” beyond the ostensible.  This thinking process accounts for the main difference between many sales successes and failures.

Preparedness

The basics of preparedness for most sales pursuits are: (1) having a breadth and depth of knowledge about the prospect and the sales opportunities the prospect represents; (2) strong leveraging points; (3) anticipation of a prospect’s responses to your presentation, and consideration of any peripheral issues that could impact achieving the sale; (4) a step-by-step vision for securing the sale; (5) a fallback approach for reengaging a waning prospect.  Sales professionals are prepared to engage and nurture sales opportunities.  Sales representatives mindlessly go through the motions of call, meet, and follow-up without sufficient preparation.  Sales is a numbers game for the sales representative who hopes that eventually something will come from “all of my work.” 

Preparing a salesperson to engage in a sales pursuit requires an investment of time and materials from the business owner.  If the business owner or sales manager isn’t supporting her/his salespeople in the activities essential for selling in today’s world, both the business and the rep will typically lose in competitive selling situations involving competition that is better prepared.

Sales representatives can improve their preparedness by asking and answering for themselves questions such as:

1.    What data might help me engage and intrigue my prospect?
2.    What is the main objective of my meeting with this prospect?
3.    What possible issues might be influencing my prospect’s buying decision?
4.    How can I create desire for my product in my prospect?
5.    What questions might my prospect ask me and how will I answer?
6.    What hurdles can I anticipate between where the sale is now and finalizing the sale?
7.    How will my presentation help my prospect understand the value I offer?

Investment

A sales rep rarely considers what his/her sales pursuits cost her/his employer.  Profitability is not a consideration for the rep.  Sales reps see a sale simply as a sale, and their effort in any sales work as equally valuable.  Sales professionals are more valuable to employers and will consistently outperform sales reps by simply knowing where and how to invest their skills.  Professionals know which prospects to pursue, when and why a sales pursuit should be abandoned, how to negotiate and achieve profitable transactions, and strive to improve their skills in order to maximize profits from their endeavors. 

Sales representatives can improve their value as salespeople by periodically questioning themselves:

1.    Am I on-track for reaching my goals, and, if not, how will I change that status?
2.    What overall value does this sales pursuit represent to me and my employer?
3.    What priority should I give this pursuit in helping achieve my goals?
4.    How does the work I’m doing right now rank in helping achieve my goals?
5.    What can I do in order to increase my productivity and ensure reaching my goal?

Skills

Salespeople must develop a multitude of skills in order to consistently bring sales opportunities to fruition.  Sales reps often neglect developing their skills.  Sales representatives and sales professionals, therefore, vary to the extent that they diverge in possessing the skills required to sell most effectively. 

Consider the components of most sales work and their respective demands:

Selling professionally requires a multitude of skills working synergistically.  Those who possess and refine such skills become top performers.  Most people employed in sales, however, do not improve their skills, and thus, remain ill equipped to succeed consistently. 

When striving to improve the sales of your company, understand which skills are required to meet your specific challenges.  Consider your sales methodology.  Understand the rationale behind what you are practicing, and require the same exercise from your salespeople. 

The greatest sales skill that you can develop is the depth of your thinking.  Sales professionals are deep thinkers about sales situations and, therefore, are more capable of figuring out how to effectively manage those situations in order to achieve success.  Convert your sales reps into sales professionals with process-based sales training, performance standards, and appropriate support, and then enjoy greater sales success.

Copyright © 2010 ESM4, Inc. All rights reserved.

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