A New Breed of Sales Professionals

Jeremy Miller

In the fall of 1992, Alec Baldwin changed the face of sales. In the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, Baldwin portrayed Blake, a hard-hitting sales person sent to turnaround a group of failing reps. As he says, "He was sent on a mission of mercy." Baldwin's portrayal formed an archetype of success that sales people are being held up to even today. This classic quote from the movie sums it up best, "You want to know what it takes to sell real estate? It takes brass balls to sell real estate."

This attitude is so persuasive. Sales managers don't want nice guys and gals on their teams. They want "aggressive, go-getters." They want people who are "hungry." They want "closers." They want "hunters." I don't know about you, but these don't sound like positive personal character traits to me. Go to YouTube and search "Glengarry Glen Ross," and you will see one of the greatest sales speeches of all time. But you tell me. Would you buy from Alec Baldwin? Would you respect him?

When you make a major purchase do you like to be sold, or do you control your buying decision? Do you want to buy from a guy that can sell "ice to Eskimos," or buy from a professional who actually listens to your issues and helps you solve a problem? I would choose the second sales person. Modern sales people aren't closers – they're problem solvers.

Customers don't want to be persuaded or cajoled. Actually, the moment they feel a sales person is trying to persuade, motivate or sell them they become far less willing to believe whatever the sales person has to say. They tune out. Great sales professionals understand this fact intuitively. Their goal is not to persuade, but to reinforce the value of their service and how it solves problems.

Reinforcing value is the mantra of the modern sales person. Before a customer ever calls a sales person they do research online. Customers today are extremely well-educated, and they aren't looking to be sold. When they call a sales person they expect to have a meaningful business conversation. They want to clearly understand how the product or service works. Why it works. Who else it has helped, and how they overcame their challenges. What is the best practice for buying and implementing the product, and what are the risks and benefits. They expect the sales person to answer all of these questions and more.

The interesting twist of customers today is they don't expect to meet sales people face-to-face to make a decision. Customers are skeptical. They aren't buying based on the relationships they have with sales people, they are buying products and services that help them grow their business. Sales people are adapting to this new reality, and learning how to communicate value without having personal relationships. This is a new skill set for the modern sales person, because they have to build trust and demonstrate value from arms length. This requires sales people to have deep integrity, superior communication skills, deep product knowledge and a commitment to help their customers. They have to embrace all of the tools at their means in order to serve a very busy, very skeptical customer that is intolerant of persuasion and coercion.

To live up to their customers' expectations, sales people are sponges of knowledge. They learn from their organizations. They learn from their colleagues. They learn from their customers. They learn on their own. And they distill all of this knowledge, and translate it into a language that is easy and meaningful for their customers. I would describe great sales people as painters. They paint pictures in their customers' minds of how the solution solves their problems. They apply their knowledge in a way that makes their products and services tangible for their customers. Their paintings help customers buy.

The sales archetype Alec Baldwin portrayed in Glengarry Glen Ross does not work. He bullies his customers, he bullies his colleagues and he wins at their expense. That is the exact opposite of modern sales people. They aren't bullies. They are problem solvers, and amazing ones at that. I am in awe of how great sales reps are able to connect with their customers, and the commitment they have to help them succeed. That is the type of a sales person I want to work with, and the one that I would be happy to buy from.

Jeremy Miller is a Partner with LEAPJob, a sales and marketing recruiting firm in Toronto, Canada. LEAPJob recruits sales and marketing professionals for many of Canada's most recognized companies. You can reach Jeremy at Jeremy.Miller@LEAPJob.com or 905.281.3090, Ext. 22. For more information on LEAPJob please visit http://www.LEAPJob.com.