Welcome Professionals…

…recently I was talking to a highly successful sales manager. I was a bit surprised as this person obviously did not have the high level of empathy that I would normally expect with sales professionals. Furthermore, he did not have a very engaging personality, he was rather distant in a way. If he had ever read Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people” – the standard book in sales since nearly a century – he had chosen to ignore this piece of advice. Yet, this person was highly succesful in sales. What was his trick?

He told me that his most important success factor was choosing the right target clients. He made a big effort in analyzing the requirements of potential prospects and only made the approach when there was a very good fit between client requirements and the offering of his company. As simple as it sounds, that was it. Of course, he had to put in quite a lot of work in analyzing and understanding the client’s needs. But when he was sure there was a complete match, there was nothing that could have stopped him. Most of the time his effort would pay off in winning a new client.

Imagine, you would only address those prospects that are seriously a good match to your service offering, to your personality, to your own values and to your communication style? Imagine how much fun it would be to work with these clients? And I bet you could spend your client acquisition time much more effectively.

Wishing you big wins that match!

Malte