Better humans make better sales people

Better Humans Make Better Sales People

January 30, 2019

In the early 2000’s the All Blacks Rugby team was going through a rough patch.

One of world sport’s most successful teams was knocked out of the World Cup and had allowed a drunk and disorderly culture to creep in. A new management team came in and before changing anything they recognised a need to place emphasis on personal character.

They came up with the mantra ‘Better people make better All Blacks’.

Poor behaviour would no longer be ignored because that person was a talented rugby player. The result since then is an 86% win rate and back to back Rugby World Cup Champions.

Can we translate this to the sales profession?

Over the past 12 months it has become clear to me that most companies are trying to form Team-First cultures. Cultures that don’t allow for the rogue ‘high-performer’ who might deliver great numbers, but who also annoys every other member of the sales team with consistently disruptive behaviour.

What good are these people’s results if three other members of the team resign because they can’t work with this person anymore?

You also need to think about your customers. Whilst this persons results might look great on the surface, if nobody likes them internally it is only a matter of time before your customers stop liking them too.

I have quickly learnt that companies with team-first and customer-centric cultures attract the highest quality candidates and deliver the best results; and that’s the team I support. So when I interview for sales people one of the first things I seek to establish is the candidates’ personal character.

Are they a decent human being, or are they better off being your competitor’s problem?

Written by Darryn Smith, Sales & Marketing Consultant at Blackbook


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