The Most Important Skill That Sales Representatives Must Possess
This morning I received a call from a client who was building his sales team from 3 reps to 6 reps.
He wanted to put his new reps through our Fast Track Orientation, High Performance Sales Academy, Masters in High Performance Selling, and Inside Sales Process as well as purchase the Community Calls program.
He started to share with me about his success with his current sales reps using our products.
He then asked me:
“How do I know how to pick the next three sales representatives to join my team?”
I explained it all comes down to one core skill that the sales representative must possess. First, before I share that one core skill, there are certain personality traits that are found in phenomenally successful sales representatives. They usually have high energy. As a sales representative, you are going to use a lot of energy every day.
They usually are very personable and friendly. They can walk into a room and get any stranger into some type of conversation with them. They can usually handle topics like the weather or the big game from last week, or even the décor of the room they are standing in without breaking a sweat. They can easily engage others in a conversation. They also usually have this big smile to go with their big friendly personality.
It is easy to test your potential hire to see if they have this trait.
I have my secretary take the applicants for a tour of my building and stop at each desk to introduce the potential new employee. I then call and speak to a few staff members and ask them. How was his/her interaction with you? If I hear things like, “they were nice” or they report things like, “the candidate saw my dog picture and immediately showed me a picture of their dog.” Or maybe even something such as, “they saw I had a Penn State flag in my cubby and said they went to Penn State too!”
Other great questions I like that a candidate may ask is, “Why do you like working for the company”? or “How long have you been working here?” Maybe they then follow up with, “You must love your job to have been here that long,” or,”You must know a lot of information about this industry, I will have to tap into that amazing knowledge.”
This quick tour really becomes as important as the actual interview.
You want to see if they have the core skill that representatives need to be able to really land amazing accounts. You see, the best sales representatives have the ability to become acutely aware of what is important to the person they are talking to.
The best sales representatives (that I have been out in the field doing ride-alongs with), have the knowledge to stir the referral sources emotions and bring out the accounts frustrations. Superstars will quickly become competent to confront the stated problems in the future. They naturally tap into their core skill. They can clearly articulate the exact way that they, and only they, can solve their problem and make the referring person look good while doing it.
That’s it! It’s that simple! Just uncover the problem, stir the emotions up by restating the problem, and bam, come in with how you are the solution to fix their problem.
Trust me, this is how I got my nickname “The Solutionist”. I have followed this fixer mindset long before Olivia Pope, ever took to the big screens in Hollywood for the TV show Scandal.
Let’s see it in action now! I am going to take you through a sales call to one of my favorite Cardiologist’s office who refers to all 3 of my service lines. Let me set the stage.
I am going into a large physician’s office and I have gotten about 8 referrals over the last 2 months. I have built this relationship from the front desk, the “window witch” all the way to the 3 cardiologists at the practice. I have learned that once a month the 3 cardiologists meet for a team meeting and I got invited to sit down with them today over lunch.
Start with small talk, about family and fun fall activities going on in the communities. Next, I took control of the meeting flow by just claiming it. I said, “Ok Gentlemen, this is how I would like to spend the next few minutes with you all before I let you go about your incredibly busy day. I have a few questions to ask so I can learn more about your practice and any challenges you may be facing.”
I have their commitment and then I ask these questions:
Share with me what issues are top of mind right now with your practice.
Probe deeper, “Tell me more about wanting to increase legitimate ways to bill for more at each MD visit”.
Restate what you believe is their problem and stir the emotions. “I believe from our conversation today, that you are all expressing concerns about adding on additional billing codes because you don’t want to take any risk for billing more by adding additional billing codes to the claim unless you all feel good about providing the additional billing service. In addition, you want to make sure you can easily pass a billing audit about the additional billing codes added to the claim”. Did I get that correct?
Come in with your solution. I have heard similar requests from other physician offices, and I have one quick solution that I can provide you with today. You can bill for advance care planning easily and I have books of the necessary resources that you can place in your exam rooms and I can show you how easy it is to add this resource book with just a few questions from you when you enter the exam room about the information in the advance care planning resource book, and you can comfortable add this billing code to every patient visit. Let me show you the resource book, I have one in my car. In just 5 mins I can show you how to have this done today!
Now, I was prepared. I after all am the co-creator of the Masters in High-Performance Selling System. In our master’s program, we teach reps sales strategy sales calls to help improve Mips scores for physicians as well as teach them how to support the physician to learn new billing strategies such as Advance Care Planning billing.
Because I was prepared, I made sure I used my core skill of uncovering their pain and offering a solution to their problems, I was able to take today’s problem and solve it.
The result? I just put this account in a vault.
I have made sure that every referral, from all three of these physicians, will be sent to my agency.
You see folks, we don’t just work on creating products that help you get more patients to serve. We share with you, exactly how we are winning referrals!
Home Care Sales was created to serve more people. To make sure that everyone that needs help at home gets the services. When we create products, it is because we use those exact products to serve more patients. That’s why our past clients come back over and over again and purchase our products for every sales rep they ever hire.
Want to check out our master’s program? Reach out to [email protected] and arrange a demo! You too can have an amazing team of “Solutionist” like me!
You can also claim some of Mike’s time directly on his calendar here:
