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Traits Of Top Payroll Sales Winners
Place a group of payroll sales “winners” in a room, and what do you find? You find sales reps of all sizes, dispositions and styles of selling. Some are more aggressive than others. Some are more consultative. Some are highly educated, some not so. So how do you know they're winners? Because they're the ones who consistently learn the payroll business, work their territory, build a referral base, and retain their customers. And they share these five traits:
1. Attitude: Attitude makes all the difference. A particular situation may get a sales “winner” down, but he/she will not let it take him/her out of the game. If sales winners can't get to a payroll prospect today, they make a long-term plan to keep trying to make contact over the next six months to a year. If a great deal falls through, they study what went wrong and improve their approach for the next time. If they can't change a situation, they change their attitude about it. They won't allow themselves to be defeated.
2. Urgency: Sales winners have a great ability to look at a list of tasks and set their priorities. They don't just say "I have to make some calls today." Their greatest desire is to keep their activity levels high, sales moving forward, and end each day with a sense of accomplishment. They generate massive activity and get results. Urgency fuels activity. If something is urgent, you must act. In payroll sales, you've got to make things happen, and the best salespeople can't wait to get started every day.
3. Tenacity: When sales winners know they have something of value for a prospect or client, they do not give up. If at first they don't succeed, they really do try again and again. They learn about the situation, the potential customer and the customer's payroll needs. They come back with new solutions and do not accept defeat.
This trait alone guarantees success, if you learn and get smarter each time you come back. When prospects see how tenacious you are—how much you believe in your vision and your desire to help them—they, too, will get enthusiastic about how your payroll service can benefit them.
4. Understanding: Sales winners know their market, customers, the payroll industry and their competition. They do their homework. They put together the big picture that allows them to take smart, calculated action. They stay in a questioning mode. After every action, they ask "What is this telling me?" "What do I need to do differently?" They understand that change is sometimes necessary. No matter how many times you throw yourself against a locked steel door, it won't open. You may, however, be able to break through a nearby window. Sales champs understand when they're wasting time and when it's time to move on.
5. Follow-through: To a prospective customer, there's nothing worse than a broken promise. It's a loss of trust that's extremely difficult to regain. Sales winners do not make promises they can't keep. They are realistic. They don't try to be everything to everybody. But once they give their word, they make a commitment and stick to it.
Does a sales winner demonstrate all these traits all the time? Of course not. Sales winners are human, with the same flaws and failings as everyone else. But they know that in the end, the harder they work at sharpening these traits, the better these traits will work for them.
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