Learning from Other Sales People

A couple of weeks ago I was mentally brainstorming topics for posts as I meandered about Guitar Center (I know this sounds like an odd place to think about business writing subject matter, but trust me, I do some of my best thinking in Guitar Center). In doing so, I stumbled upon an interesting opportunity for eavesdropping. A 40-something man approached a seemingly time-killing sales person and began asking questions about a particular guitar that his teenage son was fiddling around with a few feet away. I immediately began keeping one eye and two ears on this exchange, breaking down the sales guy’s entire game, from product knowledge, to communication skills, to how long he paused to think before answering questions (unfortunately for him my analysis was not very favorable, but that’s neither here nor there). The point is that listening in on this situation caused me to project his selling behaviors against my own so that I was thinking about my own skills in relation to those of another sales person.

I think using one’s experiences with other salespeople to improve their own abilities is an excellent tool for success, and we all already go halfway there without even thinking about it. Much the same way that an actor cannot simply watch a film for the fun of it without subconsciously breaking it down and critiquing the acting, cinematography, musical score, use of light, etc., we sales people cannot be given a pitch without analyzing seller’s confidence, knowledge, body language, etc.

The trick is going that extra step, and actually taking our analyses and applying them to our own selling behaviors. Now that you know what you liked and didn’t like about another sales person, what can you learn from them to improve your own abilities?