4 Different Types of Salespeople

Understanding the personalities and styles of your sellers can facilitate you to put them in the positions to succeed. How you sell is deeply determined by the type of your personality. So, knowing which category you fall in can shape your perspective on how you approach selling. It also lets you take maximum advantage of your strengths and unleash your potential. 

A person’s selling style influences the kinds of sales they gravitate towards. You watch in movies; you see this salesman who’s working his ass off but faces rejection every time. It’s not because he doesn’t know how to sell but he has been placed into a role that runs counter to his selling style.

 As Covey put it: “If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”

Advice that might lift one person up to reach their potential might not work for another. Thus, managers and coaches need to be mindful of each person selling style in their sales team. 

Four basic kinds of salesmen

Sales lie at the heart of profitability for almost every business entity. Therefore, you need to hire staff that is the best fit for your business. 

1. The Order Takers

This is the most common type of salesperson employed by a company. Order takers can be defined as a type of salesperson who collects customers’ orders and floats information to the relevant departments in the company. So, they are not supposed to go the extra mile or perform functions like Increasing sales and persuading customers. 

Order takers are expected to have accurate information about the bookings and delivery timeframe. They are trained to answer basic inquiries of customers with a moderate grasp on communication skills. 

Besides, this kind of salespeople are easily available and demand a comparatively low wage based on their current skills. 

2. Empaths

Learning to stand in someone else’s shoe not only connects you with them emotionally but also enables you to pinpoint their pains and needs. This essentially helps you to communicate the value of your product aligned with their needs. 

When you lead with empathy, they don’t just view you as a pushy salesman but as someone who can truly solve their problem. Empaths listen carefully to the prospects and extract as much possible information to articulate the perfect pitch that addresses the prospect’s problems.

An empathic salesman understands human psychology and pays close attention to social cues that give them a knack for getting inside people’s heads. They incorporate diverse strategies to deal with different kinds of prospects. 

Often you might stumble upon salespeople who don’t just brag about features but highlight the product’s value that relates to your desire. And you happily buy it. Basically, they sell solutions and they’re Empaths. 

3. Closers

Can you guess the most celebrated type of salespeople in any organization? 

They are closers, the ones who bring money. Closers are gifted with a knack to speak directly to the lead and convert them into customers. They operate with a single mission of paramount importance to them, and that is; closing deals. These guys are conditioned to respond to every objection of the potential buyer.  

They’re well equipped with all the hodgepodge tactics romanticized in “The Wolf of Wall Street”

Moreover, closers are driven by finding a thousand ways to get a “yes” and bridging the gap with value. They entice prospects by strategies like creating a sense of urgency & enthusiasm to generate more sales. One thing that distinguishes them from other sales kinds is their unmatched confidence. 

4. The Professional Salesperson

Professional salespeople are also considered as one of the popular kinds of salespeople. The job of this salesperson is to professionally deal with the potential customers, by emphasizing on building a rapport and providing more convenience throughout the transaction. This type of salesperson is very sophisticated and possesses good analytical skills.

Due to their professionalism, they often get sales from the previous buyers as they trust them.   

A professional salesperson serves the function of building trust and ensures that the expectations of buyers are fulfilled. With their analytical skills, they keep a check and balance on performance and deliver timely reports. 

Conclusion: 

To sum up, Recognizing different selling styles can help you unleash the potential of each of your people. However, A person can like being an Empath but might not be good at it. As a manager, it’s your responsibility to make effective hiring decisions based on their selling styles.

It doesn’t stop here. Now, you need to evaluate and allocate the right position to them. The role that supplements their selling style. In a nutshell, businesses succeed only if you have put your best players in the position to succeed.