Page 86 - 914INC Q2 - 2016

914INC. Sales Roundtable
84 914INC. Q2 2016
QRobert Schork, 914INC.: Do you be taught. If you are confident and Listing Service [when we first] put all our
knowledgeable about what you are selling, that will shine through.
Nancy Kennedy, Houlihan Lawrence: I’ve been in sales for 31 years, yet I never felt I sold anyone anything. I feel my job is to educate and inform, ask lots of questions, and not offer my opinion. I carry myself confidently and with an intense passion and a very strong work ethic.
Jason Metzger, PURE Insurance: I think everybody is in sales today, no matter what role you play in your company. There used
to be information asymmetry, where the seller had all of the information, but today you have this world of information that everybody can get
to. So now you have to come to the table as more of a consultant, a trusted advisor, someone who can lead them down the path to a decision.
Mike Ryan, HEINEKEN USA: At Heineken, we actually have a mantra, a rallying cry: “You either sell beer or you help sell beer.” And it’s a mindset: Some people are really good at it, and they learn on the job; other people are taught. Some people are just naturally gifted at sales, but you have to have drive to win.
You have to have that passion.
think that sales skill can be taught, or is it something you either have or you don’t?
Anthony Panarella, Nissan:
There’s no question some people have a natural gift for sales. But what is more important is having the innate personality traits that will put you in a position to excel at sales. I see it as
a three-legged stool: one, talent and capability; two, work ethic; three, competitiveness.
Lynn Bagliebter, Sterling National Bank: I agree that
there are certain personalities that
are a more adaptable fit to a sales environment. But, I also believe it can
listings on Realtor.com, and I actually had threatening phone calls from brokers, saying, “What are you doing? You are putting us out of business!” because we were the gatekeepers. No one else knew what was on the market. So that idea of becoming a more trusted advisor and
a guide to help people through the
Qprocess is really a big transformation in my business.
Schork: What does it take to be a great salesperson?
Bagliebter: I don’t think that, in the banking world, we consider ourselves salespeople. We are developing relationships. We become their trusted advisors, delivering all the capabilities of the bank to them. And sometimes we say no, if someone is not creditworthy. That’s all part of that advisory role that we play. And for us, it’s an ongoing long-term relationship... . In banking, you live with the loan for many years to come, so it’s a very complicated type of sale in that respect.
Metzger: I think it's the same characteristics that are just great to have in business: being very curious, wanting to understand how things work or why people do the things
“I’ve been in sales for 31 years, yet I never felt that I sold anyone anything. I feel my job is to educate and inform.”
Q—Nancy Kennedy, Associate Real Estate Broker, Houlihan Lawrence
Amy R. Partridge, they do; having some sense of 914INC.: Does the access to entrepreneurialism, where you feel information that consumers like if your ideas are good, you are
have now make it more chal- going to go out there and that you lenging for a salesperson, or is have the empowerment to make things it actually helpful? happen. It also helps to be emotionally
Metzger: I think we used to hear that salespeople have this bad rep. It’s because they were the keepers of the information. It’s only fair now that everybody has
it; you just have to change the way you go about it.
Kennedy: I was president of the Westchester-Putnam Multiple
intelligent and be passionate about what you are doing. You also need to have some sense of purpose.
Ryan: You also have to love challenges. Love the unknown; love the ambiguous; love the tall order that seems almost insurmountable. That’s the drive that I think good salespeople have. But they also have to be humble enough to know that they are not going