ENDURANCE: A KEY ATTRIBUTE FOR SUCCESSFUL SALESPEOPLE
The Great Ethiopian Run, run in Addis Ababa, is a 10k road race that has taken place at the end of every year since 2001. The race is the biggest in Africa; it drew 38,000 participants in one year.
However, perhaps the most interesting part about the race is not its size but how it showcases Ethiopia’s culture of endurance running. Each year, the race’s winners have been Ethiopians, who often go on to compete on a global level. The event also caters to up-and-comers: Within the Run, there’s a race for children under 5.
“The whole country is running,” notes Haile Gebrselassie, two-time Olympic gold winner for distance running, in an interview with The Guardian about the event.
When explaining what makes Ethiopian distance runners so good, he continues, “It’s because of opportunities here. … Plus the lifestyle: the kids walk to school – no, they run! – every day. I ran six miles every day to school and back so my training started when I was three or four.”
Like distance running, consultative selling with insight also requires significant endurance, albeit in a different manner. The timeline for targeting, research, and prospecting, conversations early in the customer’s buying process, conducting assessments, solution presentations, to getting final paperwork signed can often be long and arduous. Without a significant amount of endurance, a salesperson may never be able to go the distance to get to the “finish line” to close deals.
It’s not a bad idea, then, for people in sales to take a cue from a culture that does endurance so well. While you can’t go back in time and give your team endurance training at a young age, you can make endurance training an everyday thing within your sales team.
Just as long-distance running athletes prioritize aspects of training, focus on these areas with your sales team to build endurance:
Train Daily:
Just as elite runners train every day in some capacity to prepare for races, leaders should cultivate a culture of preparedness with their sales team. Sales professionals are better positioned to win deals when they’ve developed a strategic plan to address each individual in the buying process. You should be coaching your reps on the 3 Whys – Why Change? Why Now? And Why You? Encourage your sales team members to train every day if they want to win big.
Focus on Improving Weaknesses:
Perhaps a runner needs to build speed or work on the end-of-race “kick”; without a doubt, h they will execute specialized drills ahead of race time to improve in those areas that need improvement. Similarly, members of your sales team need to work on getting better in areas where they experience weaknesses. Identify the selling attributes required to successfully sell your solutions and assess each of your rep’s capabilities. Any gaps that are identified should be part of their personal development plan. Regardless of your sales team’s pain points, coach to these and practice, practice, practice. It won’t be fun working on areas where your sales team struggles, but it’s the only way to improve.
Take Rest Days:
Even the most skilled runners must take time off from training to allow their bodies to recover and, in turn, get stronger. The same goes for maintaining endurance on sales teams. Encourage your team members to take breaks from the stresses of work and promote a healthy work-life balance. After all, an overtaxed body won’t perform well in a race, and a burned-out salesperson won’t perform well, either.
Looking for more thoughtful pieces on sales? Be sure to browse Kodiak Group’s blog.
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How do you build sales endurance? Share your insight with us!
Great article. Definitely agree. Trained over 100 sales people and here are a two traits that top performers have in common, and that you think about before thinking about training:
Confidence – you need people with self-esteem and that are comfortable speaking with others. You can have the best training in the world, but if your team does not project confidence in themselves, the presentation of your offer will suffer. For example, if you have an amazing service or product, but the person selling it is nervous, hesitant, or insecure, then prospects will judge your offer based on that impression.
People with a positive perception of money – If you are working with someone who hasn’t closed an appreciable amount of deals, they may have self-limiting beliefs about money. I’ve seen reps make the false assumption that “because I can’t afford this, how can anyone else?” This creates a self-defeating mentality and causes a damper on sales. You can overcome this by reenforcing an “abundance mentality” to your team.
Of course there’s more to it, and this may seem obvious – but those two categories knock out a lot of other smaller ones.
Lastly, sales has a lot of ups and downs, meaning you should have a CONTINUOUS process in place for keeping everyone motivated when things get tough. However, coaching and mentoring can be time and resource intensive. If you don’t have time do handle this part, there are some good ways to outsource the training/motivational aspect:
Grant Cardone offers a pretty solid program.
Cardoneuniversity.com
There are also top rated services like this one which custom tailor training to your specific business like: MangoAlex