Every salesperson I have met has their own style and approach. Some are lighthearted and laid back, while others are sticklers to process and firm commitment. There are the relationship-builders who form bonds, and build advocates in their prospects. The classic hard-workers who pound the phone, and play the numbers game to get to their number. Problem solvers are detailed in their approach, and try to be conscientious in their post sale follow up. Then there are the lone wolves who pave their own way and process, and the challengers who bring new ideas to the table to encourage a new way of thinking for the prospect. The Challenger Sale does an amazing job of laying these out, but in this post I want to discuss one way I have begun to view the world of salesperson archetypes: the Doctor or the Therapist.
Let's start by picking apart the way each persona (Doctor or Therapist) approaches a sales pursuit, and try to keep track of where you identify yourself.
- The Doctor
The Sales Doctor will go into a sales pursuit with the assumption that the prospect has some underlying pain, and it's their job to find it, then prescribe the solution to fix it. This often requires asking questions to identify symptoms, checking vital signs, and doing a full exam of the situation. Some of those questions could be:
- What challenges are you facing in the market?
- What specific painpoints do you have?
- How is the business performing against the trendline or goal?
- Is that challenge you mentioned a problem you want to solve?
- What problems keep you from hitting your goals?
Most sales doctor personas have a well defined road map of questions they will ask, almost like a flow-chart, to help them diagnose the underlying problem a prospect may be facing. Essentially the sales doctor gets the sale by getting prospects to admit they want to fix those problems, and offering a clear solution or prescription. Ailments cured, right?
- The Therapist
The Sales Therapist invites the prospect to sit on their comfy couch, and also asks a number of questions to see what's going on. The therapist usually makes the assumption that something must be bothering the prospect, and that's why they're talking to them. A little different from the doctor's approach, their questions are designed to understand how business is trending, how the person feels about their current state, and if they feel something can be done better. Some examples are:
- How is the business doing?
- How does the company set goals? What's the vision for growth?
- Do you feel there is room for improvement? If so, where?
- What would make you more effective in your role? As a company?
- Can you identify anything that may be slowing you down as a company?
A number of the "therapists" that I have worked with approach exploratory conversations as a "getting to know you" exercise, where they really just want to get inside the prospects head to see what they are thinking. They move deals forward by uncovering how the prospect feels about the current state, and getting them excited about the future.
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So which is the better approach? Well personally, I feel the answer is neither. The most successful reps I have encountered, are the ones who can adopt both personas. They know when to dig in and quantify the prospects pain/goals, yet they can also empathasize and understand how the prospects feels about the situation. Here is an example of a rep using both styles during discovery:
Rep: So Mr. Prospect, what are some goals Acme Co. has this year? 
Prospect: Well, we are trying to expand into new markets to capture new customer segments.
Rep: Ok interesting, why is that important? 
Prospect: In order to hit our 20% revenue growth target, we need a larger customer base.
Rep: Makes sense, what would happen if you missed that 20% revenue growth? 
Prospect: Bad things, we wouldn't be able to invest in our infrastructure, and it would set us back a few years.
Rep: Ok got it, that wouldn't be ideal. What is holding back the expansion? 
So as I move forward in building my own Inbound Selling style, I am going to try and keep both of these personas in mind. Are these the only types of sales personalities that exist? Of course not. This is just a fun way to look at some different sales approaches under the microscope...get it?
