Top Performing salespeople seem to effortlessly shatter quota, quarter after quarter. Based on LinkedIn's recent research, here are seven ways that top performers* in globally do differently than average salespeople.
- Top performers embrace sales technology.
- Top performers place the buyer first.
- Top performers understand that adapting to change is not optional.
- Top performers have transformed the cold call.
- Top performers are ambitious users of LinkedIn.
“Top performing salespeople, number one, understand how to build rapport and connection with the client. They know how to do their research, they know how to find even personal things to connect with the client, and they work at building a relationship,” says Samantha McKenna, Founder, #samsales Consulting
The data from LinkedIn's report on what sets top performers apart is extremely important, because average sellers can become top performers by adopting these proven approaches.
“What we’re finding more and more is that if you want to have a successful sales organization, you have to understand what ‘good looks like,’” says Joe DiMisa, , Senior Client Partner, Korn Ferry. “At Korn Ferry, we have found that world-class sales organizations, the ones who regularly hit their sales numbers, do an assessment of the top 10% of salespeople within the organization on a regular basis. This assessment looks at the skills, the traits, the drivers, and the competencies of that top 10%. What are the top five or six skills that a top rep demonstrates? What are the five or six key competencies? If you can properly identify these attributes, you can use them to build a success profile, and upskill other 'average' reps to boost your sales organization’s performance.”
Top Performers Embrace Sales Technology
Top performers are more likely to embrace sales technology, especially in the wake of COVID, which has made it unsafe to travel, virtually impossible to attend in-person events, and highly difficult to meet face-to-face. This situation has placed more emphasis on using sales technology to identify and reach prospects. Top performers understand this fact and are far more likely to use sales technology and to see its importance.
By a margin of 32% to 28%, top performers in 2020 were more likely to use sales tech on a daily basis compared to average performers. Top performers were far more likely to describe sales tech as “very important” to closing deals by a margin of 65% to 49%.
Top performers see sales technology is useful in specific ways. They are more likely than average performers to “strongly agree” that sales technology connects them to the right prospects by a 56% to 45% margin. Similarly, top performers are more likely to “strongly agree” that sales tech helps them “build strong relationships” by a margin of 56% to 48%.
With their belief in the power of sales tech, it only makes sense that top performers are far more likely than average performers to anticipate that their usage of specific sales technology will significantly increase this year:
- · CRM (50% of top performers will “significantly increase” usage in 2021 vs. 38% of average performers)
- · Sales Intelligence (46% vs. 36%)
- · Sales Planning (47% vs. 34%)
- · Sales Engagement (46% v 33%)
- · Virtual Collaboration (47% v 39%)
- · Sales Coaching (44% v 29%)
In particular, top performers prize two specific technologies: CRM and sales intelligence. Top performers are more likely to say that sales intelligence tools are “extremely critical” in closing deals by a margin of 49% to 29%. Additionally, top performers tend to spend almost an hour per week more than their colleagues updating their CRM. As a result, they are more likely than average performers to be “very confident” in their CRM data by a margin of 57% to 39%. “Top performers,” says Morgan J. Ingram, Director of Sales Execution and Evolution at JB Sales Training, “are very tight in the way that they set up their CRM.”
With their embrace of CRM and other sales tech, it’s no surprise that top performers are able to thrive in this new world where meeting customers face to face is such a rarity. Top performers were more likely than average performers to have closed deals of $500,000 or more without ever meeting the buyer in person by a margin of 41% to 33%.
“Top performers are willing to take the leap of faith and embrace new technologies in order to educate and engage with prospects and customers,” says Paul Lewis, Global Social, Digital Marketing, and Social Enablement Lead at Pitney Bowes. “This is key as more millennials now begin to enter the job market; these individuals have a new way of communicating, salespeople need to change their ways and embrace new technologies or face being left behind.”
Top Performers Place the Buyer First
Top performers are far more likely to put the buyer first. By a margin of 67% to 55% when compared to average sales professionals, top performers say they “always” place the “buyer first.” When this question is posed in a slightly different way, top performers are far more likely than average sales professionals to “always” place the buyer’s needs above their own by a margin of 56% to 35%.
How does taking a buyer first approach reveal itself in action? One way is that top performers understand that as the business world has grown more complex, buying committees have grown in size and also in importance. Top performers are more likely than average performers to be “multi-threaded” at accounts and believe that engaging with multiple influencers on the buying committee can help win new business by a margin of 60% to 49%.
Top performing salespeople, says Craig Rosenberg, Distinguished VP/Analyst at Gartner, “are buyer-centric. They can truly understand the buyer and what they are trying to do. Detail-oriented, organized, fearless, storytellers. All of the above, but buyer-centricity trumps everything.”
Top Performers Have Transformed the Cold Call
Top performers say that prospect responsiveness to cold calls and cold emails has increased — in a major way. Top performers are far more likely than average performers to have experienced a “major increase” in responsiveness to cold calls by a margin of 54% to 27%. The same is true for cold emails, where the margin is 53% to 30%.
What is going on here? Surely, top performers are not randomly picking names out of a phonebook and giving them a call. And they’re not blasting cold emails into the void, because our research shows they are more likely to see cold calling (by a 31% to 27% margin) as a behavior likely to prevent a deal from closing.
What’s changed is that no top performer is actually engaging in a true cold call; instead, they are turning what once were cold calls into warm calls through research and preparation. Through tools ranging from search engines to LinkedIn Sales Navigator, top performers gain an understanding of their prospects and their businesses before ever reaching out.
Our survey confirms this theory. Top performers are far more likely than average performers to engage “most of the time” in a variety of research activities, such as:
- Review prospect company website (46% vs. 38%)
- Conduct research with network (45% v 34%)
- Conduct research with team (45% v 33%)
- Follow client’s activity on professional networks like LinkedIn (44% v 33%)
This research leads to knowledge, and developing this kind of understanding enables top performers to be empathetic and build trust with prospects. “Top sales performers know how to engage and demonstrate empathy with someone’s burdensome business issue,” says Julie Thomas, CEO of ValueSelling Associates. “Empathy is the ability to put yourself in another person’s situation and perceive things from their perspective. It’s not just about imagining how someone is feeling, but having some knowledge of their situation and what they are trying to achieve. Without empathy, we can’t fully understand the problems prospects might be facing in relation to our product.”
Sahil Mansuri, CEO of Bravado, adds, “Top performers spend far more of their time researching their industry, learning about their competitors, understanding trends, reading about ancillary things that affect their industry and being thought leaders and consultants in their space than they do pounding phones, sending emails, and prospecting.”
Ironically, top performers say they spend less time selling than average performers do. In a typical week, top performers spend about 100 minutes less time selling than their colleagues. Top performers are, however, spending more time preparing for the time they do spend actually selling — and it appears to make all the difference.
Top Performers Understand That Adapting to Change Is Not Optional
It’s clear that sales, like all aspects of business, is changing quickly. New ways of using technology and data are only one aspect of the changes hitting the sales organization, and COVID has only accelerated these changes. Our survey data indicates that top performers are far more likely than their colleagues to say that a sales managers’ ability to adapt to change is “much more important” than it was five years ago by a 50% to 34% margin.
As sales organizations grapple with changes in technology, data usage, and more, top performers are more likely than average performers to focus on the cultural aspects of how sales organizations can most effectively adapt to these changes. For example, top performers are more likely by 50% to 46% than their colleagues to support new hiring processes (such as hiring for diversity and for different experiences) for sales organizations to adapt to the changing world.
Top Performers Are Ambitious Users of LinkedIn
When compared with average performers, top performers tend to see higher value in LinkedIn. Top performers are also more likely to say they are “very active” on LinkedIn by a 55% to 46% rate. In 2020, top performers were more likely than their colleagues to say they were writing their own articles on LinkedIn “much more” by a margin of 52% to 30%. Similarly, top performers were more likely to be sharing third party content on the platform “much more” by a margin of 46% to 28%.
Top performers are more likely than their colleagues to say they plan to place a “significantly larger” effort on expanding their LinkedIn network in 2021 by a margin of 40% to 22%. Top performers are also more likely to say they’ll be posting “much more” of their own articles on LinkedIn by a gap of 53% to 33%.
Dive into the details on what top performers do differently than their counterparts.
*Methodology
LinkedIn’s recent survey of 7,600 buyers and sellers around the globe uncovered several ways that top performers take different approaches than average performers. Top performers were defined as those who said they reached 125% or more of quota. Average performers were all others who took the survey.
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