The story is all too common. And the shock is felt by perhaps hundreds of thousands of early-career sales executives every year. After working diligently to earn top grades, assembling the perfect resume and jumping through endless hoops of interviews and references, a brilliant promising sales executive we’ll call Sam Shotwell lands his dream job with a leading company. Everything seems to be going as planned until our Sam meets his polar opposite who we will call Moose Maxwell.
From the very first introduction, Sam realized something was simply not right about his colleague Moose. Moose couldn’t have earned anywhere close to the GPA Sam had earned. Likewise, Moose could not have answered those grueling interview questions with anything approaching Sam’s articulate intellect. Yet here the two were, hired as the newest sales executives in a promising organization.
Sam spent his first several weeks stupefied as to how in the world Moose got hired. Perhaps it was some form of nepotism. Moose might have been the nephew of someone important like a big customer or significant investor. But there was one thing of which Sam was certain; his sales figures would far outstrip anything Moose could possibly deliver. But Sam would soon find his certainty ill-placed. While Sam’s sales consistently place him below the department average, Moose seems to always perform at the top. Here are four things Moose does that Sam needs to adopt if he wants to match or even beat his rival Moose.
Weed Out the Non-Buyers Early. Moose doesn’t have the brains to construct a complex argument. Instead he pulls one or two of his solution’s benefits that seem most relevant to the target’s industry, title or download choice. If that doesn’t hook the target buyer early, Moose does little else. He may email one more piece of collateral with a short cover note but he’s ready to call on somebody else. Smart guys like Sam are often too convincing for their own good. Sam often manages to intrigue the non-buyer into further exploration. But in the end, the target customer in question is still a non-buyer.
Keep it Simple. Moose would have no idea how to tweak the standard presentation his marketing department prepared to adjust it for his target buyers. So Moose simply takes every willing target through the entire presentation as is. Moose is happy to move on to the next slide whenever a target customer asks to move along, but otherwise Moose sticks with the script. The result is the target customer may discover value he had not expected. But more importantly, there is nothing slick or “too perfect’ about Moose’s presentation that would raise suspicion. In contrast, Sam might be too slick for his own good. After sitting through Sam’s qualifying questions, a target customer might easily conclude Sam’s “perfect match” solution was too good to be true. In short, Moose never loses his target customer’s trust.
Let the Sales Engineers Win Over the Techies. The part of the buying cycle that involves technical evaluators terrifies Moose more than any other part of the sales cycle. Moose would never do this alone. And he would never interrupt a sales engineer. In contrast, Sam fancies himself to be the smart person he is. If it is difficult to secure a sales engineer’s time, Sam might not delay the technical meeting. Likewise, Sam might find himself interrupting the sales engineer often to toss in what in Sam’s eyes is an important point. But the result can be a distrustful technical buyer and a resentful sales engineer who won’t go out of his way for Sam the way he would for the more cooperative Moose.
Concede When it is Time to Move On. Consistent with his behavior at the beginning of the sales process, Moose is comfortable moving onto the next sale. In contrast, the Sams of this world hate to lose and when a sale appears dead, Sam redoubles his efforts one last time. Occasionally, Sam’s efforts appear to pay off when the target customer takes Sam over the competition in exchange for a hefty discount. But in contrast, Moose often finds himself pleasantly surprised to discover he has won after all—and without the sacrificial discount Sam fought with their sales manager to offer.
Despite Moose’s initial advantage over Sam, Sales is still a meritocracy. Sam can learn to adopt Moose’s best qualities. But Moose will never be able to adopt Sam’s best qualities. The “smart” sales executive, who is willing to do what the successful “dumb guy” does, will win the most often of all.
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