What could you learn from a rookie salesperson?

One common objection from sales managers for not training their salespeople is that our people are experienced.

When athletes are good enough to become professionals, they have experience. Yet, teams still heavily invest in coaching these athletes. What if your favorite professional sports team thought this way?

What if they didn’t? The younger, more recently trained athletes would quickly bypass the older athletes. So why do many managers in the selling profession believe it is unnecessary to train their seasoned people? Could these managers be guilty of a disservice to their experienced people by not training them? Is this philosophy hurting an individual’s wallet and their company’s profits?

Many of the best salespeople we see are new. Sadly, they are hard on themselves because of their inexperience and intimidated by experienced salespeople and customers. However, those seasoned salespeople might be able to learn some lessons from new salespeople!

• All salespeople make assumptions, but new salespeople don’t rely on them. They are conscientious and do not want to make a mistake. Rookie salespeople confirm their assumptions.
• They listen. They must; they don’t know everything! They haven’t seen it all before.
• They respond. They still care about their prospects and customers and need them!
• They are open to learning from their managers.
• They are humble. They want advice. They want to learn from others.
• They are open to doing things differently. They haven’t seen everything and done everything, so they can’t say it won’t work. More things are possible in the mind of a new salesperson.
• They call on new people. They look for people in their territory to call. They don’t call on just their favorites.
• They plan questions to ask prospects and customers. They don’t wing it.
• They work hard to build relationships because they don’t have many. Everyone is new.
• They view their products and services with fresh eyes. They have yet to be beaten down by prospects and customers who fail to see the value.
• They ask about their prospects’ and customers’ objections instead of defending them. They must ask because they don’t know.
• They don’t wait until the last minute to prepare their forecast. They use their forecast to help them work through the sales process.

If you are an experienced salesperson or manager of a team of experienced salespeople, try to look at selling from a new perspective; that of a new salesperson. If you have a new salesperson on your team, talk with them to gain a fresh perspective. You can learn from each other.