In the September / October issue of InPublishing magazine, we are running an interview with Claudine Collins, once of MediaCom, now chief client officer at Mail Metro Media (not yet on our free mailing list to receive the magazine? Register here).
What shines through the interview is that, despite the relentless march of AI into all aspects of our lives, the attributes that go to make up a great salesperson are very human.
Based on what Claudine had to say, successful salespeople are:
- Relationship builders: “Relationship building and maintenance is a must-have skill,” she says. Great salespeople use Teams, WhatsApp et al, but welcome the opportunity to meet face-to-face. And, importantly, they stay in touch between meetings.
- Good listeners: they find out what prospects and clients need before telling them what they can have.
- Confident: “If you’re confident, people believe what you are saying. And if you’re not, people can think you’re not as good as you really are.”
- Well-rounded: they remember there’s life outside work; they know the client’s partner’s name, where they went on holiday, which football team they support…
- Tireless networkers: they never miss an opportunity to make connections and find out stuff, because they know that, one day, those connections and that information might come in handy.
- Friendly and personable: All things being equal, people buy from people they know, like and trust.
- Passionate: if they’re not excited about what they have to offer, how are they going to get clients to be?
In addition to the interview with Claudine, there’s many more great articles to read in the upcoming issue, including an excellent piece by National Geographic Traveller’s Berkok Yüksel on how they went about transforming their newsletter strategy. There’s also our fourth AI special. Don’t miss it…
You can catch James Evelegh’s regular column in the InPubWeekly newsletter, which you can register to receive here.
