Discovering Your Selling Style

What is your selling style?

If you are applying for a position within a sales department, you may be asked a question similar to this one at some point during your interview process. How you respond, how well you know your style and own natural abilities, could easily be what makes you stand out above the rest. But in order to communicate what your unique selling style is, you must first discover it yourself.

Why is it important to know what type of salesperson you are?

There are literally thousands of salespeople out there who are meeting their numbers without giving one thought as to how they sell. But this is a mistake! Whenever you function outside of your primary selling style (whether knowingly or unknowingly), you become uncomfortable and less efficient. Doing this on a continuous basis puts you in danger of becoming unsuccessful.

Your selling style is a relatively stable representation of what your natural tendencies are with a customer, from presentation to close, regardless of selling time, place, or product. It is how you connect with your customer. Your actions influence how the customer will respond. When you discover and develop the perfect selling style for you, your selling naturally becomes easier and more effective. You will be more aware of what your style is and will be able to more readily modify it depending on the situation, thus more effective in accomplishing your goals.

What are the 4 Sales Types?

There are four general types of salespeople in the world, separated into two categories: proactive salespeople – those who make things happen rather than wait for them to do so; and reactive or passive salespeople – those who usually wait around for the client to make the first move. Proactive salespeople are known as Hunters or Farmers, while reactive salespeople are typically known as Shopkeepers or Repairman.

The Hunter

The Hunter thrives on seeking out new opportunities, opening new doors and searching for the next big break. They are constantly looking in the distance for what’s next, often times at the expense of an opportunity that is right at their front door. They excel at quantity, not necessarily quality. With that being said, they are the best type to have around when your sales funnel is empty because of their “go and get ‘em” mentality.

Some very telling adjectives for the Hunter include aggressive, driven, highly focused, and self-assured. They can be hyperfocused on their own agenda that they are no longer aware of what is in their customer’s best interest. Hunters often appear to be disorganized, but in actuality they do not like paperwork or keeping detailed records, which leaves managers unaware of their progress.

Hunters aren’t a particularly creative bunch and tend to gravitate toward planned, proven, and straightforward methods of getting business. They are bold, decisive, and candid in their efforts to close a sale.

The Farmer

Farmers prosper when maintaining or nurturing accounts or opportunities. They are well-equipped for the long haul, developing lifelong business from existing accounts. They tend to go full steam ahead once they are given a sales lead, and are often going out of their way to assist their customers because they sincerely believe in maintaining a valuable relationship.

When sales are more difficult to come by, the Farmer tends to complain or wish away their days for better sales opportunities. Rather than get down and dirty by making something happen themselves, they gravitate toward simply waiting it out. They would rather work on maintaining relationships with their marginal accounts over setting up something new.

Unlike the Hunter, Farmers are very creative in their attempts to persuade a customer to buy. They make innovative and lively presentations.

The Shopkeeper

Shopkeepers have a cheerful disposition and enjoy helping people. They are not detectives and so they won’t try to discover exactly what it is that a prospect wants. However, if a prospect already knows what it is that they are after, a Shopkeeper is the perfect person to help them find it. Helping others is a definite strong suit!

Friendly, service-oriented, and hospitable are all adjectives that accurately describe the Shopkeeper selling style. They are people pleasers and feel they must be liked and respected by their prospects, sometimes to a fault. With a more introverted personality, Shopkeepers are best suited for inside sales. They would rather respond to others over initiating first contact.

With such a pleasant temperament, Shopkeepers do not like to be viewed as aggressive or pushy. They opt to wait for a customer to buy over pushing a sale, which makes closing a difficult task for them.

The Repairman

As the name implies, Repairman are generally technical by nature. While they are very helpful as a technical resource, they rarely succeed as a strong salesperson. This is because they tend to be at their best when talking with someone in their same discipline, who are often engineers, accountants, computer analysts, or other technical professionals. Speaking with someone like-minded gives them a chance to demonstrate their excellent technical abilities and “repair” the other person’s problem.

If a Repairman is interacting with another technical person, a sale may result (though it is not guaranteed.) However, if they are talking with a nontechnical person, the two more often than not are speaking completely different languages and are generally not on the same page, which typically results in a no sale.

It is possible to train a Repairman to be a salesman, but know that it is outside of their comfort zone. They believe the product’s technical superiority will sell itself, so why should they have to?

Primary and Secondary Sales Types

As the name implies, most salespeople spend the bulk of their time operating in their primary sales mode, the place that they feel most comfortable. A person’s secondary sales type is more of a backup mode, a method a salesperson is not particularly inclined to use without good reason. If someone has not discovered or developed a secondary sales type, this person will not easily change the way they sell regardless of what exterior motivation there may be.

Where are you most effective? Where does your comfort zone lie? Everyone has a unique selling style, it is up to understand your weaknesses and learn to capitalize on your strengths. Discover what style, or combination of styles, works best for you and then go for it!