Good Sales Executive / Bad Sales Executive
Inspired by Ben Horowitz’s Good Product Manager/Bad Product Manager
Good Sales Executive/Bad Sales Executive
Good sales executives understand the product features, their benefits, and the competition extremely well, operating from a strong basis of knowledge and confidence. A good sales executive recognizes that their role as the CEO of growth. A good sales executive takes full responsibility for the sales pipeline and measures themselves in terms meeting sales targets and delivering customer success. They are responsible for managing the customer relationship, and all that it entails. A good sales executive knows the context going in (the company strategy, customer pain, key decision makers, procurement process, competition, etc), and takes responsibility for devising and executing a winning sales plan (no excuses).
Bad sales executives have lots of excuses: “I don’t have enough qualified leads, the marketing team isn’t doing their job, Microsoft has a huge expense budget and a five person team on the account, my quota is too high, the product sucks, our CRM is painful etc.” Chris Gardner didn’t make these kinds of excuses and neither should the CEO of Growth.
Good sales executives don’t get all of their time sucked up by non-revenue generating activities or low priority items. They don’t waste time during customer meetings, they don’t delay in responding to lead requests, and they don’t shy away from difficult situations. They are not a part of the sales cycle; they manage the sales cycle. Customers don’t consider good sales executives as ‘gatekeepers’ to the organization’s resources. Good sales executives act as the ‘gateway’ to the organization’s resources. Good sales executives know how to effectively uncover the customer’s need, “the pain” (as opposed to just the feature set required) and manage the delivery of “the solution.” Bad sales executives feel best when they get a feature set to demo. Good sales executives consider every interaction with the customer, a strategic opportunity to provide value and win the deal. Good sales executives don’t walk away when the customer signs. Good sales executives double down on their commitment when the customer signs.
Good sales executives execute prospecting campaigns, schedule meetings with customers, and spend time learning information that enables them to provide value in moving the sales cycle forward. Bad sales executives complain that they spend all day working on RFPs and sales administration. Good sales executives anticipate customer requests, possible objections, and have prepared themselves accordingly. Bad sales executives put out fires all day. Good sales executives know to check in on customers regularly, and invest in building relationships both vertically and horizontally across an organization (even when there isn’t an immediate project with an available budget). Bad sales executives wait for their customers to reach out to them, and lament that they don’t have access to decision makers when trying to close deals. Once bad sales executives fail, they point out that they predicted they would fail.
Good sales executives focus their efforts on qualified opportunities and making their existing customers successful. Bad sales executives lack focus, chase every opportunity, and don’t care about customer satisfaction. Good sales executives consistently close deals and have a well defined and repeatable sales methodology. They proactively look at ways to move the sales cycle forward. Bad sales executives occasionally close deals, while pretending to use a loosely defined sales methodology. They are consistently reactive and unable to get ahead of the competition.
Good sales executives negotiate from a point of strength and are able to create a compelling reason for their clients to purchase. They are able to quantify benefits, and clearly articulate the value they create against the competition. Bad sales executives negotiate on price and end up in a race to the bottom. They end up getting very confused by the differences between delivering value, matching competitive features, and articulating benefits.
Good sales executives think about how their customers perceive them, with the hopes of generating referral opportunities when closing deals. Bad sales executives think about how their colleagues perceive them, with the hopes of winning awards and boosting their egos when closing deals. Good sales executives err on the side of transparency, ensuring they are always honest with their customers. Bad sales executives are short sighted, and very quick to conveniently leave out details in order to close deals. Good sales executives assume their customers are very smart and prepare themselves accordingly. Bad sales executives assume they can fool their customers and then inevitably get themselves caught.
Good sales executives work efficiently versus working hard. Bad sales executives are always working too hard on the wrong things. Good sales executives define their job and their success, by executing a win plan for each opportunity. Bad sales executives want to be told what to do next in the sales cycle, inevitably leaving their success to chance.
Good sales executives update their CRMs regularly, delivering accurate forecast reports because they are disciplined. Bad sales executives forget to update their CRMs and have huge fluctuations in their forecasts, because they don’t value discipline.
This post was inspired by Ben Horowitz’s Good Product Manager/Bad Product Manager. I found it very useful when trying to learn about the role of a Product Manager in a software company and was inspired to write my own version of it; albeit from my own experiences from the perspective of a sales executive. I’ve tried to follow the same format and style that Ben Horowitz used for its effectiveness as well. Please note that the use of the term “Sales Executive” in this case is specific to B2B Software/SaaS companies (although most of the content is still applicable to sales executives in other industries as well). I would highly recommend reading Good Product Manager/Bad Product Manager after (or before) reading this post.
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Image Credit: Two Face figurine — By Nathan Rupert
