The final Sales Success Trait is Authenticity.

Not just because I wrote a book called Selling With Authentic Persuasion, but because it is the final key piece in the mindset toolbox for a successful sales professional.

As I wrote for the salespeople – as to why it is the fifth one, and why the order is so important [LINK], we will continue with the perspective you need to have from a leadership role.

How do you support Authenticity?

One key, as I mentioned in the salesperson article, is to ensure that your team feels the same way about the prospects and customers as they treat them. That if a prospect/customer were to eaves drop in on the ‘behind the scenes’ dialog by a salesperson or the entire team – it would match how they were treated during the sales interaction.

I have unfortunately seen and heard many times where once the prospect leaves the office or isn’t on the phone/video call, that the salesperson starts talking really negatively about the prospect. I have heard everything from “they were lying…buyers are liars. They always lie” to “they were never going to buy, they were just trying to waste my time” to “find ‘em, fleece ‘em, and forget ‘em” regarding pricing and the general feeling about customers.

Humans are not great at a lot of things, but we have survived for a long time because we can make instant, instinctual decisions about our surroundings. We might not know exactly why, but our Spidey senses will go off, warning us of danger. Your prospective customers are also human (despite how salespeople might treat them), so they can tell when someone is pretending to be nice to them or is genuinely concerned about helping them get to a better place.

You have to decide – what type of company and culture do you want to have? Hoping that you aren’t the one in the mix with them having these negative, prospect bashing sessions. If you do hear them, put a stop to them in the moment and then do some coaching on the side to help people shift.

If they don’t want to shift their mindset, then they might not be a good fit.

Embracing Authenticity Within Your Team

Second, the key to leverage Authenticity as a Sales Success Trait is to get your team to be okay with being themselves. I have seen a lot of salespeople think they have to act a certain way or have a certain personality for ‘sales’. And if they don’t have it, they will try to act like a salesperson.

That might work a little, short term – but it’s not sustainable. No one can act a certain way, full time, day in and day out, week after week. Now – some level of ‘fake it until you make it’ is understandable to build some confidence. But the key is that you want each person on the team to be themselves.

And let them. Don’t try to make them all like yourself or what you think works for salespeople. They might tell different jokes, have different responses. Remember – the key is that the more they can bring themselves into the sales structure you have put together, the more success they will generate.

Trust that the Authentic version of each person will actually work well with the prospective customers. One caveat, of course – is that it needs to be the ‘professional’ Authentic version.

Leading By Example

Lastly, it is important that you are Authentic. Success as a leader isn’t about always being perfect. You are human, you will make mistakes. You will say the wrong things. When it happens, acknowledge it. Be yourself. Allow your human side to come out and as much as you can, differently with each person – since everyone has their own way of viewing the world. You might be able to joke around with some of your team, but not others. You might be able to give blunt feedback to certain salespeople, but others you have to take a different approach.

Being Authentic – even as a salesperson – is also about being the best version of yourself for who you are speaking with and the situation you are you in.



Conclusion

When you can set that tone from the top, the team will respond and bring their Authenticity into the conversations and leverage it along with the other Sales Success Traits to close more deals and make more money.