Even the "Naturals" Can Improve

Over our careers, we have met a number of truly gifted "natural" salespeople. They make it look easy. On a consistent basis, they achieve 200-plus percent of quota, despite the fact that most of them cannot define what makes them successful.

We can. If you look back at the seven comparisons we have just made, these natural salespeople are consistently customer-focused along the first six measures. That's what explains their success.

But in our experience, even these naturals have room for improvement on the seventh and final measure. Most of them believe (like their less skilled peers) that selling is convincing, persuading, and so on. So we believe even the most gifted sellers can become more customer-focused. We believe the key to a natural salesperson succeeding as a sales manager is to first become consciously customer-focused. Customer Focused Selling, as explained in this resource, is designed to help all sellers assess where they are, and give them a specific methodology to help them become more successful.