Insights into Top Performers – Part 1: An Interview with Mark Roberts

He points out many of the things we’ve noticed when interviewing top producers…

“Superstar salespeople are very well rounded in their questioning skills. They can ask good, relevant questions, but not too many. It can get a little creepy when somebody starts asking more than 10 questions. The better salespeople might use just five good questions and can demonstrate that they understand the market problems that that buyer probably is having. Top salespeople also understand business acumen and they can connect the dots to the bottom line. Finally, they speak in terms of stories. They don’t have to be the salesperson’s story, it can be the company’s story, but the best make it their own so it sounds and flows so that it’s not canned.”

Mark has given us a remarkably simple, but effective insight into how top performers turn more opportunities into closed sales:

Bad habits that get in the way…

Nearly all salespeople want to close more sales, make more money, earn more recognition and experience more success, but habits often get in the way. Some of those habits are motivational, some work ethic related, and some are related to avoidance behavior. When asked what bad habits he has observed in salespeople, Mark responded with some specific skills related habits,

“Not asking the right questions that are relevant, not listening, and not even having the emotional intelligence to understand what to ask and when are the most common bad habits in salespeople.”

Mark’s observations are consistent with 90% of the sales executives we’ve interviewed that rate too much talking, poor questions and listening as the most limiting habits that most salespeople get into. We asked Mark his thoughts on why average salespeople tend to talk so much on sales calls…

“Salespeople talk too much because of a couple of things. One, it’s how we pay them, they have a comp model based on performance and they’ve got that what I call ‘commission junkie’ on their back. Two, it’s how we train them. Old school sales folks show up and throw up. I call it feature and benefit bingo, they’re waiting for the buyer to jump up and yell bingo and that doesn’t happen. We have to train salespeople to let their prospect talk 70% of the time.”

What decision makers expect from salespeople…

The internet and ease of gathering information on potential suppliers has changed the way buyers think and make decisions. More often than not, they already understand the products and services of the company the salesperson represents before the meeting begins. They need more than features and benefits packaged into cookie cutter solutions. Mark explains,

“Be more of a trusted advisor than a sales rep. Prospects have enough sales reps calling on them and they’re not enjoying the experience. There was a recent quote that said that 85 percent of buyers today are expecting a salesperson to connect the dots between their product or service and the value that product provides, and only 15% are.”

Many of our SalesGym clients have been financial services firms and the challenge of convincing a person to trust you with their life savings is enormous. The most successful financial advisors connect with their customers in a way where they share their concerns, dreams, and often irrational fears about money and their financial future. Mark has observed the same thing with salespeople in his company…

“The problem most salespeople have is they don’t get below the surface and it’s below the surface that an iceberg actually sinks the ship, or in this case helps you make the sale. It’s the stuff that no other vendor knows. Salespeople have to know how to ask questions in a particular cadence that goes from broad to very specific to be able to get that unfair advantage of knowing things that the other people calling on the job don’t know.”

Thoughts on effective training approaches…

Mark’s extensive background in sales and training salespeople has given him a deep insight into one of the most important elements of sales management … training.

“The trouble is, so many companies want salespeople to sell on value, yet they don’t teach their salespeople how to sell on value. They know their products intimately. Sometimes they know the problems that they solve, but salespeople are rarely taught the business acumen of how a particular thing impacts the bottom line. It’s like they are talking a different language and when they start talking the language of the customer, that’s when the magic of sales happens. The onus is on the company to teach salespeople how to sell on value and not just assume through osmosis it will happen.”

We’ve found it’s relatively easy to get salespeople to understand better approaches and strategies and to get them to agree that these new ideas would work better than what they’re currently doing. Frankly, that’s the easy part. It’s getting them to use these new approaches skillfully that’s the hard part. Selling is a verbal challenge, and verbal skills take practice to improve. Interestingly, it’s practice that many salespeople avoid because it feels awkward…

“When you ask salespeople what part of training do they hate the most, they always say role-playing. However, if you read the studies on what makes training stick, it’s role-playing. So, I stopped using the word role-play about ten years ago. You have to connect real-life scenarios for salespeople so that when they face that scenario out in the market they are prepared for the real thing.”

We’ve found there’s a real art to running a good simulation practice session that is realistic and helpful. Michael Jordan used to explain that the key to his amazing ability to perform at his best at the highest pressure moments was to practice in a way that simulated real pressure. That’s exactly what effective role plays can do as Mark explains…

“Role-plays are designed to make you uncomfortable because you not only have to exchange knowledge, you have to be able to apply it in the real world. I used to teach karate and my rule was, before you fought in a tournament you had to fight me. I would make sure that you would get a good picture of all the stuff someone of your rank would send you so whenever you got in the real ring it was easy and actually never as hard as the training.”

In closing, Mark reminds us of the risk of underestimating how critical practice and training is to sales teams…

“Organizations don’t always respect the discipline of sales as much as they should. Too often it seems they think, ‘How hard is it? A monkey in khakis could sell our stuff.’ So what practice they had, unfortunately, was on their live customers.”

Or, as Peter Drucker put it… “If you think training is expensive, try ignorance.”

The SalesGym is a research, consulting, and training company that works with and learns from sales teams all over the world and has refined a coaching and training process that trains sales teams the way elite athletes are trained. More insights and articles from us can be found on our RESOURCES PAGE.