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1. Lead gen is in the bag.
This is so key. You cannot be a top-performing sales rep without having a very clear strategy for lead generation. You can't be struggling day-to-day thinking to yourself, "How am I going to generate new leads?" You have to know precisely what you're doing to generate those leads.
2. Execute every day.
I see so often that top-performing reps are very consistent. They're very disciplined. That doesn't mean that they're working way harder than all of the other sales reps out there. Often they work fewer hours. But they are incredibly disciplined about executing the plan every single day.
3. They don't look for friends.
We don't need friends in sales. If you are a top-performing sales rep, you are not going to need friends in sales. Now, of course, you've got to have friends in your real life. But what we see is that the myth of the relationship builder and this has been dispelled over and over and over again, where for many years, people thought that often top-performing reps were the best relationship builders.
4. Establish authority.
Top salespeople are authorities, are experts. And it doesn't mean that you need 25 years of experience in your given field. But instead, they're focused on understanding the entire marketplace, where their prospects exist. And so as a salesperson, you can so often have such a fantastic bird's-eye view of what's happening in the lives of your customers and your prospects. And sharing that expertise and knowledge establishes authority.
5. Assertive, not aggressive.
This is so key. Top salespeople are very assertive, but just to the point of being not aggressive. We see often middle-performing reps are afraid to be assertive. They so often are kind of timid, and that's problematic. We need to be assertive. We need to be willing to challenge a prospect when they do something that's not either in their best interest or our best interest. But we don't want to get to the point of being aggressive.
6. Disqualify.
I say this so often, but top salespeople are so good at disqualifying opportunities that are not a fit. They're going into every single conversation with a prospect and saying to themselves, "Is this ultimately a fit?" And if it's not a fit, they move on. And if it is a fit, then they start to dig deeper to determine that it is a fit.
7. N.S.O. Next-step obsessed.
When I say this, I want to put this in context. I believe, and we see from the data that the best salespeople, the top salespeople, are obsessed with establishing the next steps in every single stage of the sale. They are willing to push for that next meeting. They're always trying to get that next piece scheduled, so that way, sales don't fall apart.
8. It's a game.
Selling is a game. Selling is like a game of tennis. Sometimes the ball lands in the way that you were hoping. Other times it doesn't. It's not a big deal. If you lose a point, you lose a point. And that's what a sale is. It's not the whole game. It's just a point here and there. You've got to have that mindset like all of the best salespeople that, "Hey, you know what, sometimes a sale goes well, "sometimes it doesn't."
9. Enjoy it.
We need to enjoy the process of selling. You know what, so many of the top salespeople enjoy selling. Whenever I talk to them, I get a fantastic birds's-eye view of top salespeople, and one thing that you notice about top salespeople is that they legitimately enjoy what they're doing. They're having fun.