• June 1, 2017

6 Different Ways to Become a Top Salesperson

They say there’s more than one way to skin a cat. But what kind of psychopath would actually want to do that? It sounds pretty messed up… The expression means that there’s more than one way to get to a desired outcome.

The same is true in sales. Top performers all got there by taking their own path, often aided by great proactive sales tools, like Spiro.

While all sales legends reach the peak of their performance in different ways, these are some of the common ways that people become top salespeople at their companies:

1. The Networker

Some people hate networking because it can feel like a waste of time or because it can take a while to bear fruit, but there are people who make a fortune in sales from it. The best part about salespeople who have mastered networking is that deals will come to them instead of having to hunt for each one. Of course, it can take years to grow your network to a point where you can work from the beach or the golf course all day, but for these top salespeople, the payoff is huge.

2. The Prospecting Machine

This top salesperson is laser-focused on building their pipeline, and all of their activity is centered around prospecting. Making cold-calls, emailing, and following-up is the core of this salesperson’s daily routine, and they don’t let anything else distract them. The beauty of having a pipeline filled with deals is that when inevitably something goes wrong with one deal, or you lose a few, you still have many others to get you to your goal. Become a prospecting machine and the commission checks will start to flow in.

3. The Tech Nerd

This type of top salesperson is becoming increasingly more common as technologies like Spiro, that help salespeople close more deals emerge. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need a technology background to start using these tools, since many of them are easy to set up and work in conjunction with your existing behaviors. These top performers have found that a lot of the busy work that holds other people back can be automated, and are using technology to get an edge on their competition.

4. The Big Game Hunter

The big game hunter is a success because he or she lands huge deals that many other salespeople are afraid to pursue. Big Game Hunters are usually supremely confident and even more ambitious, preferring to go after deals that can make their entire year instead of focusing on the low-hanging fruit. If you want to become a big game hunter yourself, make sure that you’re ready for a challenge and don’t give up easily.

5. The Self-Promoter

These salespeople invest heavily in marketing themselves and aren’t shy about it at all. Whether it’s digital ads, television commercials, or huge billboards, this top producer sinks a huge portion of their income back into their advertising. And if the type of sales they do isn’t conducive to advertising, the self-promoter will find some other way to get in front of the right audience, whether it’s through trade publications, business partnerships, or covert operations. Nothing stops the self-promoter from promoting themselves.

6. The Relentless

The relentless is the most impressive type of top performer because they got to the top through sheer force of will. These types of salespeople usually don’t have any outstanding charisma or anything else that’s outwardly impressive about them, but it’s their unshakable determination and work ethic that takes them into a higher caliber of salesperson. When Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com, he also registered the domain name www.relentless.com, because he knew that it was the most important ingredient to success. These top performers also understand that, and act accordingly.