I’ve had the privilege as you probably have, too, to meet some very successful salespeople and business owners.  Those people that seem to have a magic touch and deliver consistently strong performance and value to their customers.  A key to their success was getting to the table in the first place to have the conversations that lead to these strong relationships with customers.  They somehow earn their way into the hearts and minds of these customers.  How do they do it?

As I have examined and interviewed these people, here are two things that I have found.

First, if you ask them how they do it, they think they know and often they don’t.  They very often say “I just build strong relationships” or “I’m not afraid to tell it like it is” or “I kept after them for years”, etc.  All things that certainly could contribute.

Now, when I observe these people over years what I really find is that they do something brilliant.  They often don’t even realize it’s brilliant and yet it seems to be the trigger for great relationships. 

Three examples:

I know one business owner who shares his Decision Grid with his customers and they fill it out together.  This one action makes his process transparent to the customer and in one meeting helps this business owner determine if there actually is a decision process and, therefore, a real opportunity.  This one 30 minute conversation with a customer early in the sales cycle helps him build trust and pursue real opportunities.  Brilliant! 

Another sales leader I observe was winning the big contracts left and right in his company.  What did he do differently?  He had the fastest turnaround time vs. his competitors.  Brilliant! He left the customer meeting with his action items and they were done that day.  He was a master at coordinating internal resources to meet the needs of the customer.  He made everyone work at his pact.  Brilliant!  He didn’t let time kill any of his deals.  His deals flew through the pipeline all because he set the pace for his team and the customer team.

One last example.  I know a sales leader whose team has consistently led the company in sales, innovation, top customers and many other categories for over 20 years.  What does he do?  No matter what the company is doing, he picks one solution to sell.  Brilliant!   They offer about 40 programs and he and his team put all their focus and efforts around one solution they feel is the most relevant and useful to their customer  and they spend all their resources there.  Risky? Maybe, but it’s been working.

So, observe the top performers you come in contact with and don’t simply ask them what they do differently, watch them. Figure out what they are doing differently.  It is often one brilliant thing that you could repeat in your territory.  Go be BRILLIANT!

Meeting to Win recently sent out the Best Practices of Top Performers sales team meeting agenda.  Sales teams around the world worked through an exercise to list the brilliant things top performers in their own companies are doing.  Right now, those brilliant actions are being replicated across organizations.  To experience similar momentum, subscribe to Meeting to Win sales team meeting agendas and elevate your teams to top performer status.