by Alex Low | @Alexander_Low | LinkedIn
I was chatting with the Head of Sales Enablement at Hootsuite the other day, Shamis Thomson. We were debating whether Canada has any decent wine or not. Evidently it does, based on his pitch to me, the rest of the table, and possibly the restaurant. We soon knew why it was as good as any new world or French grape juice.
What was great was that he was so passionate about it. His passion meant you believed that he believed in what he was saying. This, in turn, means we all were swayed by his argument.
Shamis and I agreed that passion is sometimes hard to come by in sales teams. Do passionate sales people really, truly care and believe about their customer’s problem? Are they are trying to solve it? Or, is it just about hitting next month’s pay cheque, quota and making Club. I would suggest there is a mix in all sales teams.
Lone wolves versus passionate players
You have the lone wolf, who smashes their number each quarter, no interest in management, mentoring, works almost like an automaton to get the deal done and move on.
There will be those who are there to get the pay cheque and do just enough to not get fired. Or they find the next job with the next business before they get found out. Again.
Then you will have those who have a blend of the lone wolf, but are genuinely passionate about helping their customer. They believe in their product or service. The output is hitting their numbers and higher referral sales from happy customers. If you do not believe in what you are selling, then your customers will not care either.
If I look back through my career, my reasons for moving on have always been driven primarily by no longer believing in what I was doing. This has nothing to do with the brands I worked for but what drives me as a person.
I am now doing something which I love, I believe in it and am passionate about it. And the brilliant thing about social and social selling is that I now have a global voice to share my passion for what I do. And so do you.
PS: To keep Shamis happy, here are the top Canadian Wines.
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