You need three vital things for success in sales

There’s a lot of noise on business social media about the supposed “secrets” of sales.  Killer tips and tricks, secret methods of the stars, “ABC - Always Be Closing”…you know the kind of thing.

Maybe sometimes, for certain kinds of sales processes, they work.  But in the world many of us live in, where we’re selling high-value services business-to-business, they really don’t.  At least not in my two decades of experience.

Rather than being blown by the winds of social media opinion, or putting our faith in “miracles”, I believe it’s better to develop three underlying behaviours.  Principles that will work for us whatever the circumstances and regardless of what we’re trying to sell.

Patience

No one likes to hear this one.  Not least among which, people leading sales teams and who are under pressure for results.  But the simple truth is that sales is rarely a quick process.  It takes time to nurture a new contact to the point that they know, like and trust you enough to spend money with your organisation.  

It is necessary to be patient.  

To develop prospects steadily.  

Not to push too hard (because we all know how offputting that can feel).  

If you’re working in business development, you just have to realise and accept that it could take many months to win work from a new prospect.  Leaders of sales teams need to give their people the space and support for this to happen.  Sure, you can do much to influence the process.  But it rarely happens overnight and all the pressure in the world won’t change this.

Resilience

If you’ve worked in sales and business development for any length of time, you’ll have experienced rejection.  We hear “no” or “not yet” more often than we hear “yes” from prospective clients.  If you have a healthy pipeline of new leads and are having initial calls or meetings with them, this is just going to be the case.  

You have to accept this fact and get used to it.  If the first rejections you hear have you questioning whether sales is the career for you, it might not be.  And sales leaders have a big part to play too.  If your team knows they have your support and understanding that rejection is just a part of the process, they’ll be far more likely to have the resilience necessary to keep going.  

Which brings me to the third point…

Tenacity

Once you accept that sales will take time to nurture and that the journey will involve a lot of disappointment, you need the strength of character to bounce back and keep going regardless.  The best sales people I’ve known have been incredibly tenacious.  

They hear the “no” from the prospective client, then dust themselves off and work to understand what a “yes” might look like.  

They are adaptable and develop solutions that work for the client, rather than pushing a “cookie-cutter” offering.  

They develop the ability to keep going through those long months and retain a firm belief that they will, in the end, prevail.

This isn’t misguided optimism, it’s tenacity.  Optimism is passive and leads us to base our hopes on a belief that somehow things will change.  Tenacity realises that things can and will change, but it’ll take a lot of work!

Patience, resilience and tenacity.  I’m sure there are others, but if you can only nurture these three characteristics in yourselves and your sales teams, the success you’re chasing won’t be too far away.