From my own selling experience, working with sales people, and training hundreds and thousands of salespeople, I thought about what makes a good salesperson and came up with 8 types;
- Lovable Rogue
- Nice Guy
- Talker
- Dirty Rotten Scoundrel
- High Activity Rate
- Repeatable Process
- Proposal Writer
- Deal Maker
You can be a very good salesperson just by focusing on one of these areas and being good at it.
I’m not going to go into detail and describe each one here. You’ll have to keep returning or subscribe to this weblog!!
But what reminded me of these 8 Types is having a Repeatable Process – Finding a niche market, supplying to that niche market something it wants, and then just keep doing it. You don’t have to even be good at what you do, you just keep doing it because you’ve found what the market wants.
I was thinking about this today, at a café here in Melbourne, that has free WiFi. It’s attracting Geeks. Lots of them. The word is out, and the café was packed today. More so than any other café on Acland St in St Kilda. And I spent more today, yet again, on coffees and breakfast, than I would if I signed up for hourly access!!
I’m just at another café and I asked out of courtesy, if I could plug the power in. The guy had to phone up to the boss, and word came down, that I could if I ordered another drink. Now I’ve already met a friend here and had 3 coffees. Not exactly friendly, and it was like an alien question to them. I’ve not been made to feel welcome, but actually, the place is so empty, it’s the best working space I’ve found so far in Melbourne!
The other niche market, that I keep scratching my head over, is my daughter’s new school. For some obscure reason, they decided to be “The” French school in Melbourne. In other words, they want to attract all French speaking people to the school. In some cases the parents can’t speak English, but they want the kids schooled in English and French. What a great niche. If you are a French family working in Melbourne, and you’re looking for a school for your young kids, then this is the place. If you want your kids to learn French, then this is the place. A very tightly defined niche.
Find your niche. Find what the markets wants that you offer. And you won’t have to be good at selling. The product or service sells itself, because the niche is so well defined, and there’s strong demand.
I identified this type of salesperson by realising that there are many very successful salespeople out there, who aren’t particularly good, but they’ve found their niche market, and they just focus on that, sometimes for years, having huge success. Think about the people you know who seem to sell well in spite of their talent! It could be that they have a Repeatable Process selling in a Niche Market.
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