Focused on reality

Are you a sales manager or a true sales leader? The difference, David Mattson, CEO, Sandler® and author, Scaling Sales Success: 16 Key Principles For Sales Leaders, maintains, comes down to whether you can see beyond five classic myths that we often tell ourselves about selling.

- David Mattson

MYTH 1: Extroverts make the best salespeople

True sales leaders focus on reality—on facts. One fact that many in our profession overlook when recruiting, hiring, and promoting salespeople is that introverts can, and do, succeed at the highest levels of professional sales.

This is a personal issue for me. I began my association with Sandler as a client. The organisation I worked for as a salesperson told me that I had to attend a sales training event, and honestly, I was not very excited about going. In the training and development field, there is a name for participants who are told to show up for training and would really rather not be there: ‘hostages’. My first encounter with Sandler was as a hostage. Fortunately, I had a great experience, and I was motivated to put what I learned into action. It did not take long for me to realise that what I was learning was a powerful communication model, one that was based on me being me.

Suddenly, I did not have to pretend to be an extrovert—something I definitely wasn't. I could apply tactics and strategies based on sound, proven principles of communication psychology, and I could do it as myself, without having to rewrite my own personality. I could be an introvert and still do this.