How do I make my sales people more entrepreneurial?

In today’s climate, it’s more important to take calculated risks and ask opportunity questions when selling.

As part of my ongoing professional and personal development I belong to a CEO leadership group where we meet monthly and discuss a whole range of topics to stimulate our thinking and decision making.

Recently we discussed the concept and qualities of successful entrepreneurs. Besides making the obvious comparisons with ourselves as to whether we met the criteria of successful entrepreneurs I found the content translated extremely well into what I and other research is seeing in successful sales people today.

It seemed to me that successful sales people had a lot in common with successful entrepreneurs who are often the main sales people in their own businesses anyway.

I thought we could use this information to help us find and cultivate entrepreneurial sales people for our businesses, especially to help us entrepreneurs who need to grow our businesses beyond our own capabilities and personal time constraints.

Here is a summary of my notes:

• Successful entrepreneurs are calculated risk takers, not gamblers. Unlike risk-adverse people who avoid stepping outside their comfort zone and trying anything new, or gamblers who seem to act before they think and often stake everything on one risky deal, successful entrepreneurs and successful sales people will step outside their comfort zone but not too far at first.
• They will stretch themselves check for evidence of success and recalculate their actions to try and step out even further. Good sales people do this with their clients all the time. They will trial different options and gauge the interest and suitability of these options with their clients. This is how new products or service emerge.
• If you want to test someone’s entrepreneurial tendencies, here is one way. Play the game of quoits. Ask anyone to try and get all six quoits on the stand and see what they will do:
  • Conservative, non risk takers will stand right over the top of the stand and not move, dropping all six quoits on the stand from above.
  • Gamblers will stand far away and just throw, hoping something will stick.
  • Successful entrepreneurs and successful sales people will take a few steps back, throw two quoits, get them on and then step further back and throw again – always checking their accuracy. If they miss one they will step in a bit, throw again, get the quoit on and then step out again and so on. They are engaging in self testing and feedback which is why they keep getting better.

Needs

They also found successful entrepreneurs have three fundamental needs:
• Need for achievement.
• Need for affiliation.
• Need for power or influence.

It was found that the need for achievement was by far the most important, with successful entrepreneurs marshalling the need for affiliation and power to support their need for achievement. This coincides with the research on successful sales people.

Questioning

Non-entrepreneurs specialise in ‘social’ questioning’ which revolves around their need for affiliation and not much else. Which is why I get annoyed when sales training over emphasizes ‘building rapport’. You hear it all the time – sales people being told that to build rapport by asking about people about their personal lives, footy teams etc.

This is very old fashioned and not as effective as people think it is. In fact, for many first-time client encounters it can be a real turn off for the client. It often comes across as fake. You will build more rapport by focusing on what you are really there to do – and that is working with client priorities and addressing their issues.

Successful entrepreneurs and successful sales people specialise in ‘opportunity’ questioning. Here they are looking for evidence that opportunities exist for them to work on effectively with others. They are enquiring, curious and ideas oriented.

By looking at these qualities you can see you don’t need to start a business to have entrepreneurial tendencies. Entrepreneurial qualities, in my opinion, can be applied in many roles, especially in sales roles and more people have them than we may recognise.

Who in your team, especially your sales team is showing these qualities?

How can you and they capitalise on this, especially in these markets?

With the world presently in a major transition we need more people taking calculated risks, being prepared to ask ‘opportunity’ questions and look to achieve great and positive things by marshalling affiliation, influence and power.

Happy selling.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT Pty Ltd. Sue and her team are best known for their work in creating High Performing Sales Teams. Key to their success is working with the whole person and integrating emotional intelligence, skill, knowledge, behaviour, process and strategy via effective training and coaching programs and strategies. For more information please go to www.barrett.com.au.