This article is the first of a 4-part series about the different types of salespeople. In a world of so much information, so many tips and strategies about selling, it’s crucial to understand your unique shape and make-up as a person.
If you can do so, you’ll be clear about how you can grow and develop, and avoid the fads and stop chasing trends that don’t make sense for yourself.
Are you an Explorer Salesperson? If you are not sure, you can take a test here, or you can leave your name in the contact form to learn more about yourself.
In this section, we will be looking at the key strengths, and challenges Explorer salespeople likely will face.
Explorer salespeople are higher in proportion in the sales industry relative to their personality. This is because Explorers tend to value work flexibility and variety. Although sales usually revolve around presenting the same products or services, Explorer salespeople find joy in meeting people from different walks of life. Most of all, they enjoy making money!
Strengths
Here are some of the strengths of the Explorer salesperson:
- Bold
Explorer salespeople dare to try. They took the plunge jumping into a sales job with the uncertain promise of high income and remuneration. Likewise, when it comes to selling, they are willing to experiment with methods and practices without overthinking things.
A property salesperson I knew started off with a challenge of not knowing where to find her prospect, so she decided to start knocking on doors of HDB flats. And she persisted at it and became one of the top salespeople in her firm in record time. Their natural can-do attitude and boldness play to their advantage here in this case.
- Resilient
They are resilient to set-backs, much more than most people. Explorer salespeople take each day at a time, not worrying about tomorrow, or brooding over the rejection of yesterday. They shake these negative feelings off quickly and move forward in the new day, some times as if yesterday did not happen.
This makes them appear highly resilient toward rejections or apparent failures. What would knock another type down psychologically has less of an effect toward the Explorer salesperson. As a result, they are far more likely to push through the difficult days until they find their success.
- Adaptable
Being a salesperson requires you are adaptable to changes – changes in the client’s life stage, changes in their mood, making changes when you notice certain micro-expressions revealed by the client. Explorers are quick to observe these subtle cues and make changes as and when necessary.
The result is that they can shift quickly to appeal to the clients and adjust their sales presentations to suit the clients better. Clients may often feel understood by them, but it is usually more an impression than reality. But this plays to the advantage of the Explorer. They are likely to win the client over to buy the product or service.
Despite these advantages, many Explorers do not succeed or live out their potential as salespeople. Usually, it’s because they are unable to overcome their natural weaknesses in dealing with people in a sales setting.
Challenges
Here are some of the things that hinder their success:
- Lack follow-through
Explorers being here-and-now people, contributes to their resilience toward rejection. However, this same quality means they might forget to follow through with important clients or take crucial steps to build trust with their prospects. Some meetings with clients take longer than one appointment, and sometimes Explorers may forget to call or to follow up with an enquiry from a client, leading to them losing credibility.
By extension, this means that Explorers tend to get lesser referral business from their existing clientele. As a result, many Explorer salespeople end up having to keep prospecting for new clients – and this is not a sustainable model for the long term. Eventually, their energy drops off and they’ll probably either end up average or mediocre.
- Weaker in product knowledge.
Comparatively, Explorers are the weakest when it comes to product knowledge. They have always preferred to do than to study or read. Hence, they try to learn the minimum they need to to make a sale. If, say, 80% of sales only require 40% product knowledge, then that’s the level they usually settle with.
If Explorers do not spend extra effort at this weakness, they may face problems with bigger corporations, or clients that will scrutinise their products. They tend not to be able to answer deeper questions about what they are selling – and so lose credibility in their client’s eyes. This is also a hindrance for them to reach the High Net Worth market, which is usually sharp and incisive in their asking of difficult questions.
Learn more about Yourself.
Are you a Explorer salesperson?
Learning about yourself is crucial in your sales career. If not, you’ll end up chasing other people’s success, rather than craft your own path successfully.
To help you achieve that, I’ve developed a program named Self-Mastery for Sales. You can find out more about it here.