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What Separates the Strongest Salespeople from the Weakest

Steve W. Martin

March 18, 2015

What separates high-performing salespeople who exceed their quota from

underperformers who miss their quotas by more than 25%?

I recently conducted a research project involving nearly 800 salespeople and

sales leaders to better answer this question. In addition, I have had the

privilege to interview well over 1,000 top salespeople who sell for some of the

world s best companies. The information from these two sources provides

interesting insights about the attributes of high-performing top salespeople

compared to their lesser successful counterparts.

Verbal acuity. This refers to a communication level where the meaning, nature,

and importance of the words spoken by the salesperson are personally understood

by the customer. For a salesperson to establish credibility requires that

messages be conveyed at the recipient s communication level, not too far below

the level of the words that the customer uses. On average, high-performing

salespeople communicate between the 11th and 13th grade level when scored by

the Flesch-Kincaid test as opposed to the 8th and 9th grade level for

underperforming salespeople.

Achievement oriented personality. Eighty-four percent of the top performers

tested scored very high in achievement orientation. They are fixated on

achieving goals and continuously measure their performance in comparison to

their goals. Another interesting statistic is that over 85% of top salespeople

played an individual or team sport in high school. As a result, they are

well-equipped to function in competitive environments where self-discipline is

a necessity. For example, 52% of high- performing salespeople indicated they

were power users who take full advantage of their company s CRM technology and

internal systems compared to only 31% of underperforming salespeople.

Situational dominance. Situational dominance is a personal interaction strategy

by which the customer accepts the salesperson s recommendations and follows his

advice. While dominance is commonly associated with brute force, this is not

the case in sales. It s simply how people judge others. People are continually

sensing whether their position is superior to yours, relatively equal, or

inferior in some way. In turn, this impacts what they say during conversations

and how they behave.

A relaxed-dominant salesperson speaks freely and guides the conversation as he

confidently shares his knowledge and opinions with the customer. An

anxious-submissive salesperson is forced into reactive behavior and his

tendency is to operate under the direction of the customer, never being in

control of the account. Situational dominance test scores of high-performing

salespeople averaged 20% higher than underperforming salespeople.

Inward Pessimism. Over 90% of high-performing and underperforming salespeople

described themselves as optimists. However, upon further review nearly

two-thirds of high-performing salespeople actually exhibit pessimistic

personality tendencies. I theorize the explanation for this dichotomy is that

salespeople always have to maintain a positive attitude and pleasant demeanor

while in front of customers. However, inward pessimism drives a salesperson to

question the viability of the deal and credibility of the buyer. Therefore, top

salespeople are more naturally driven to ask the customer tougher qualifying

questions and are more likely to seek out meetings with senior level decision

makers who ultimately decide which vendor will be selected.

Sales management impact. Does a salesperson s manager play a determining factor

in achieving success? Study participants were asked, Outside of setting my

quota, my sales manager plays a key role in determining whether or not I make

quota? Surprisingly, the response from high and underperformers was identical.

Forty-six percent agreed with the statement and 54% were neutral or disagreed

with it. Moreover, 69% of high-performing salespeople rated their sales manager

as excellent or above average compared to 49% of underperforming salespeople

indicating there is a correlation.

Study participants were also asked to rank the different attributes of great

sales managers. In order of priority the top three factors for high-performing

salespeople were leadership and management skills, practical experience and

sales intuition, and communication and coaching skills. The top three factors

for underperforming salespeople were industry expertise and product knowledge,

communication and coaching skills, and fights for the team. These results

reveal how high and underperforming salespeople utilize their managers

differently. Underperformers tend to use their managers to make up for the

product and industry knowledge they lack.

Both high-performing and underperforming salespeople are in contact with their

sales managers at about the same frequency. For example, 51% of high-performing

salespeople and 55% of underperforming salespeople are in contact with their

sales manager all the time during the day. Twenty-eight percent of

high-performing salespeople and 20% of underperforming are in contact with

their manager frequently during the week while 15% of high-performing and 17%

of underperformers talk to their managers once or twice a week. However, the

conversations sales leaders have with top salespeople are quite different than

those with underperformers. They are collaborative in strategizing sessions

about prospective deals while the conversations with underperformers consist of

directional instructions and validating whether or not daily duties are being

carried out.

Sales organization influence. The research suggests that sales organization

morale influences individual sales success. Fifty three percent of

high-performing sales rated their sales organization s morale as being higher

than most sales organizations. In comparison, only 37% of underperforming

salespeople rated morale higher than most companies.

Sales organization accountability also influences individual quota achievement.

Thirty-nine percent of high-performing salespeople strongly agreed that

salespeople at their company are measured against their quota and held

accountable compared to only 23% of underperforming salespeople. In comparison,

36% of underperforming salespeople either disagreed or were neutral about

whether salespeople at their company were measured and held accountable

compared to 21% of high-performing salespeople.

Finally, the study results indicate that individual sales success is not

dependent upon the growth rate of the company the salesperson works for. The

percentage of high-performing salespeople was consistent to the percentage of

underperforming salespeople across high growth companies (over 20% annual

growth), slower growth companies (5% to 20% growth rate), companies with flat

revenues, and even companies with decreasing revenues. When taken into account

with all the research above, sales performance is more likely dependent on the

attributes of the individual and sales environment characteristics over

company-related influences.

Steve W. Martin teaches sales strategy at the University of Southern California

Marshall School of Business. His new book is titled Heavy Hitter I.T. Sales

Strategy: Competitive Insights from Interviews with 1,000+ Key Information

Technology Decision Makers