Are You An Accidental Salesperson?
We recently released an online course called The Accidental Salesperson which presumes that many people who are drafted into sales today really didn’t set out with sales at their goal. This can include engineers, subject matter experts, accountants, lawyers and even a lot of sales people.
And yet, most of the training that teaches those people how to sell is old and antiquated and actually takes away the very power that a technical subject matter expert has.
For example, one of the keys to a successful sales person − which the accidental sales person has an enormous amount of − is expertise.
Accidental salespeople who grew up in the technical world know how to solve problems and they probably know how to find problems, too. That’s not necessarily the case with a sales person who might not have worked on a widget − built it, designed it or engineered it.
We’ve noticed a trend where these accidental sales people are being asked to either head up the sales process or be a vital cog in the wheel of the sales process. And if the accidental salesperson doesn’t know how to communicate the value to a prospect, they will be lost.
Look to be Trained to Understand Decision Making
So if you’re an accidental sales person, don’t look to the sales team to train you on how to sell. The last thing you want to look like is them, especially if they are using antiquated and old manipulative tactics to do their job.
Instead, seek out training that helps you understand:
- How do people make decisions?
- Why do people buy?
- What are the typical problems that a customer has?
- How do they equate the problem they have with the money that you’re asking them for to fix it?
- How can you benefit from your expertise and knowledge?
Figure out the answers to those questions and every salesperson on your team will be asking you to go on calls with them because most of them cannot do that.
