Often, it’s effective for job seekers to gain an understanding of sales careers from experts in the field. Due to her keen insight regarding business development jobs, I asked Julie Sponagel, a Global Director of Enterprise Solutions at Fred Pryor Seminars & CareerTrack Training to share her unique perspective on sales, sales careers and what it takes to become a success as a key account manager in today’s corporate America.
Here is what she had to say:
Ken Sundheim: What advice would you give to a recent college graduate considering sales?
Julie Sponagel: If you’re considering sales, you need to know that “sales” means different things to different organizations. For example, there are:
- People who maintain existing accounts: responsibility leans more towards customer service functions to keep a customer happy & you focus a lot on securing repeat business
- People who seek new business based on leads: you’ve got to be a good “closer” to do well in this job – you’ll take an interested potential customer & then secure the business
- People who seek new business without leads: this is often referred to as a “hunter” role – it typically involves a lot of cold prospecting
Within all of these types of sales jobs, you can be face-to-face and/or over-the-phone, with typically a heavy email/Internet responsibility. Some jobs are 100% commission, while some are base salary plus commission; others are salary plus bonuses, and some are straight salary.
In order to decide which type of sales job you are considering, you need to do your research. Use your personal connections, professors, and/or internship connections to shadow sales people in as many of the types of sales jobs as you possibility can. Listening and watching a successful person in action can help you define which type of sales job is a good fit for you, or you may find that you prefer another career choice.
Remember that you hear more “no"s in sales than any other career. But, the “yes"s excite a true sales person enough to keep them motivated. It’s a hard job, but it can be very lucrative and rewarding. If it was easy, everyone would do it. If you can do it well, you’ll be in an elite group. Do your research before you jump feet first into a sales career and see if it’s a good fit for you.
Sundheim: If you had to mention one universal skill-set that is lacking in corporate America, what would it be?
Sponagel: I think we too often place people in a box. We label them with their age, gender, race, personality, style, etc. The problem with this is that all we see is the label. But clients, bosses, colleagues, sales prospects, etc. all want to be treated like one thing: a person of value who’s worth being heard. We have to shed the labels and figure out ways to genuinely communicate. This doesn’t mean we ignore diversity – that is a true strength in our social circles and businesses. But, it means we’ve got to learn ways to genuinely have conversations that don’t box people in. This involves eye contact and reading body language when you’re face-to-face. This involves knowing when to answer by email/text and when to pick up the phone. This involves building rapport with people – not because some sales book put it as the first step in the sales cycle, but because you genuinely are curious about what drives that person.
Sundheim: If you woke up tomorrow and technology took us sales people out of the equation, what job would you go after?
Sponagel: Excellent sales involves consultative needs assessments and recommendations of solutions. Technology can help us determine some of that, but it can’t replace a human listening to another human describing an organization’s goals, strategic needs, competitive advantages, and concerns. So, if technology took over the presentation & closing part of a sale, and even took over delivery of the product/service, I’d switch over to the part technology couldn’t help with: consultative needs assessments and recommendations of effective solutions to those needs.
Sundheim: Could you give me 3 tips for handling difficult clients?
Sponagel:
- Manage their expectations. We often create difficult clients by promising something we aren’t in a position to deliver. Find out when the client needs the solution and guarantee it by then, not sooner (even when you know you can do it sooner). Then, you’ll always be in a position of meeting or beating their expectations, rather than making them frustrated by constantly being late.
- Use the Q/L/S model: question/listen/summarize. Ask about what is bothering the customer, then listen (this means stay silent, DON'T interrupt, and DON'T get defensive or start giving an explanation), and then summarize what they said (you’ve got to do this mater-of-factly without sounding defensive, discouraged, or frustrated). Do this several times until you fully understand why the customer is frustrated. Only then can you offer a solution that will fit their frustration and create a happy customer instead of a difficult one.
- Keep yourself calm. There are a lot of books and online classes you can take on emotional control and/or emotional intelligence. Take some of them and learn how to keep yourself extremely calm when your customer is being difficult. You’ll naturally diffuse the situation if you stay calm.
