Why salesmen are important
Why did the executives that Mayer and Greenberg studied continue to hire salespeople who did not have the ability to perform well?
The companies were hindered in the preselection process by flaws in the prevailing forms of aptitude testing. Test takers could easily give answers they knew the test givers wanted to hear, in part because the tests sought to identify particular psychological traits rather than the personality type most capable of selling.
More than 35 years ago, the insurance industry embarked on an intensive program to solve the problem of costly, wasteful turnover among its agents. What accounts for this expensive inefficiency? Basically this: Companies have simply not known what makes one man able to sell and another not. As Robert N.
McMurry has observed:. A very high proportion of those engaged in selling cannot sell…. If American sales efficiency is to be maximized and the appalling waste of money and manpower which exists today is to be minimized, a constructive analysis must be made of what selling really is and how its effectiveness can be enhanced….
We must look a good deal further—into the mysteries of personality and psychology—if we want real answers.
It was the obvious need for a better method of sales selection that led us to embark on seven years of field research in this area. The article that follows is based on the insights we gained as to the basic characteristics necessary for a salesman to be able to sell successfully. Our basic theory is that a good salesman must have at least two basic qualities: empathy and ego drive.
Empathy, the important central ability to feel as the other fellow does in order to be able to sell him a product or service, must be possessed in large measure. Having empathy does not necessarily mean being sympathetic.
One can know what the other fellow feels without agreeing with that feeling. But a salesman simply cannot sell well without the invaluable and irreplaceable ability to get a powerful feedback from the client through empathy. A parallel might be drawn in this connection between the old antiaircraft weapons and the new heat-attracted missiles.
With the old type of ballistic weapon, the gunner would take aim at an airplane, correcting as best he could for windage and driftage, and then fire. If the shell missed by just a few inches because of a slight error in calculation or because the plane took evasive action, the miss might just as well have been by hundreds of yards for all the good it did.
This is the salesman with poor empathy. He aims at the target as best he can and proceeds along his sales track; but if his target—the customer—fails to perform as predicted, the sale is missed. This is the salesman with good empathy. He senses the reactions of the customer and is able to adjust to these reactions.
He is not simply bound by a prepared sales track, but he functions in terms of the real interaction between himself and the customer.
Sensing what the customer is feeling, he is able to change pace, double back on his track, and make whatever creative modifications might be necessary to home in on the target and close the sale. The second of the basic qualities absolutely needed by a good salesman is a particular kind of ego drive that makes him want and need to make the sale in a personal or ego way, not merely for the money to be gained. His feeling must be that he has to make the sale; the customer is there to help him fulfill his personal need.
In effect, to the top salesman, the sale—the conquest—provides a powerful means of enhancing his ego. His self-picture improves dramatically by virtue of conquest and diminishes with failure. Because of the nature of all selling, the salesman will fail to sell more often than he will succeed. Thus, since failure tends to diminish his self-picture, his ego cannot be so weak that the poor self-picture continues for too long a time.
Rather, the failure must act as a trigger—as a motivation toward greater efforts—that with success will bring the ego enhancement he seeks.
A subtle balance must be found between a an ego partially weakened in precisely the right way to need a great deal of enhancement the sale and b an ego sufficiently strong to be motivated by failure but not to be shattered by it. He has the drive, the need to make the sale, and his empathy gives him the connecting tool with which to do it.
In this discussion of the relationship of empathy and ego drive to successful selling, we will treat these dynamic factors as separate characteristics. Indeed, they are separate in that someone can have a great deal of empathy and any level of ego drive—extremely strong to extremely weak. Someone with poor empathy can also have any level of ego drive.
Yet, as determinants of sales ability, empathy and ego drive act on and, in fact, reinforce each other. The person with strong ego drive has maximum motivation to fully utilize whatever empathy he possesses.
Needing the sale, he is not likely to let his empathy spill over and become sympathy. His ego need for the conquest is not likely to allow him to side with the customer; instead, it spurs him on to use his knowledge of the customer fully to make the sale. On the other hand, the person with little or no ego drive is hardly likely to use his empathy in a persuasive manner.
He understands people and may know perfectly well what things he might say to close the sale effectively, but his understanding is apt to become sympathy. If he does not need the conquest, his very knowledge of the real needs of the potential customer may tell him that the customer in fact should not buy. Since he does not need the sale in an inner personal sense, he then may not persuade the customer to buy.
Thus, there is a dynamic relationship between empathy and ego drive. It takes a combination of the two, each working to reinforce the other—each enabling the other to be fully utilized—to make the successful salesman. Thus, there are a number of possible permutations of empathy and drive. A man may have a high degree of both empathy and drive ED , or little of either ed , or two kinds of combinations in between Ed and eD. For example:. ED —A salesman who has a great deal of both empathy and strong inner sales drive will be at or near the top of the sales force.
Ed —A salesman with fine empathy but too little drive may be a splendid person but will be unable to close his deals effectively. He is often hired because he does have such fine personal qualities. Yet his closing ability is weak. He will get along with the customer, understand him, and bring him near the close; but he does not have that inner hunger to move the customer that final one foot to the actual sale.
It is this last element of the sale—the close—that empathy alone cannot achieve and where the assertive quality of ego drive becomes the all-important essential. An employer would avoid much grief by finding this out in advance, before so much effort is spent in trying to hire, train, and spoon-feed a man who does not have within him the basic dynamics to be successful.
Since the selection of top salesmen is potentially of such enormous value, why, it might be asked, has there been so little success to date in developing methods to preselect effectively? For at least 50 years, psychologists have been working very hard in the area of testing. Almost every aspect of human personality, behavior, attitude, and ability has at one time or another come under the scrutiny of the tester.
There have been some notable successes in testing, most especially perhaps in the IQ and mechanical-ability areas. Take advantage of the impact sales can have, not only on revenue but on brand reputation, long term customer retention and business growth. If you are interested in learning more about the important role of sales in an organisation, then you may be interested in ISMM courses.
The Institute of Sales and Marketing Management ISMM offer varying levels of sales and marketing qualifications for people at all stages of their career to gain further knowledge and progress in their career. If you would like to learn more about the sales and marketing courses we offer at Oxford College of Marketing, call 0 or email enquiries oxfordpeg. You can also browse the courses on our website. Business Growth Sales play a key role in the building of loyalty and trust between customer and business.
Customer Retention Selling is a personal interaction between one human and another, which is a powerful thing. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email. Related Posts. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. However you may visit Cookie Settings to provide a controlled consent. Manage consent. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website.
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The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". They deal with regular buyers. They are order filling salesmen. They receive orders and execute them. They must have good manners and a helpful attitude. They must be able to guide the customers and help them to make quick decisions.
They must also be knowledgeable and honest. Above all, they must maintain products in the shelves in an attractive manner. Outdoor salesmen may also be called travelling salesmen. Their main job is to make regular travels, visit customers, canvass orders etc. They must possess all the qualities of ideal salesmen. They are to sell speciality products-expensive durable goods, furniture, books, house furnishings, washing machines, automobiles, refrigerators etc.
People purchase these products only after a personal and careful selection, because they do not buy them frequently. Salesmen of this kind must be masters of the art of salesmanship. They are representatives of manufacturers, who produce special items. Personal Selling and Qualities of a Good Salesman.
Top Qualities of a Successful Salesman. Personal Selling: Objectives and Features. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. Do not sell my personal information. Cookie Settings Accept. Manage consent. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website.
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