What Makes a Good Salesman - Homestead

1 No. 64411by David Mayer and Herbert M. GreenbergWhat Makes a GoodSalesman More than 35 years ago, the insurance industryembarked on an intensive program to solve the prob-lem of costly, wasteful turnover among its at that time indicated that there was aturnover of better than 50% within the first year andalmost 80% within the first 3 years. After the expen-diture of millions of dollars and 35 years of research,the turnover in the insurance industry remainsapproximately 50% within the first year and 80%within the first 3 is the cost of this turnover? Nearly incalcu-lable. Consider: The substantial sums paid new salespeople assalary, draw on commission, expense accounts, and soon, which are wasted when those salespeople fail tosell.

2 The staggering company costs, in time, money,and energy, of recruiting, selecting, training, andsupervising people who inherently do not have theability to succeed. The vast costs caused by lost sales, dropouts,reduced company reputation, poor morale, perma-nently burned territory, and the accounts for this expensive inefficiency?Basically this: companies have simply not knownwhat Makes one person able to sell and another Robert N. McMurry has observed: A very high proportion of those engaged in sell-ing cannot If American sales efficiency isto be maximized and the appalling waste ofmoney and manpower which exists today is to beminimized, a constructive analysis must be madeof what selling really is and how its effectivenesscan be enhanced.

3 We must look a good dealfurther into the mysteries of personality andpsychology if we want real answers. 1It was the obvious need for a better method ofsales selection that led us to embark on seven yearsof field research in this area. The article which fol-lows is based on the insights we gained as to thebasic characteristics necessary for a salesperson tobe able to sell successfully. Confirming the fact thatwe are on the right track is the predictive power ofthe selection instrument (battery of tests) that wedeveloped out of the same research; see Exhibit EssentialsOur basic theory is that a good salesperson musthave at least two basic qualities: empathy and to FeelEmpathy, the important central ability to feelasanother person does in order to be able to sell him orCopyright 1964 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

4 All rights Makes a good Salesmanby David Mayer and Herbert M. GreenbergJULY AUGUST 1964 1 The Mystique of Super-Salesmanship, HBR March April 1961, p. 113. EXHIBITI Three Examples of Predictive Results from Selection Instrument Based onEmpathy and Ego-DriveActual sales performance(number of people who reached eachquarter of sales force)Number of peopleDatapredicted for eachend ofTop halfBottom halfQuit orgroup*(months)Top/quarter2nd/quarter3r d/quarterBottom/quarterfiredIN THE RETAIL AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRYA346 THE INSURANCE INDUSTRYA226 THE MUTUAL FUNDS INDUSTRYA116 *Predictions made on basis of test, without seeing people or any records:Ameans outstanding, top potential as a salesperson, almost certain to succeed with high recommended, good productivity, and can sometimes be designated as developable into an not recommended.

5 Even though a Ccan under the right circumstances edge into becoming a low absolutely not recommended; the applicant concerned has virtually no possibility of a product or service, must be possessed in largemeasure. Having empathy does not necessarilymean being sympathetic. One can know what theother person feels without agreeing with that feel-ing. But a salesperson simply cannot sell well with-out the invaluable and irreplaceable ability to get apowerful feedback from the client through parallel might be drawn in this connectionbetween the old antiaircraft weapons and the newheat-attracted missiles. With the old type of ballisticweapon, the gunner would take aim at an airplane,correcting as best he could for windage and driftage,and then fire.

6 If the shell missed by just a few inchesbecause of a slight error in calculation or because theplane took evasive action, the miss might just aswell have been by hundreds of yards for all the goodit are salespeople with poor empathy. Theyaim at the target as best they can and proceed alongthe sales track; but if the target the customer fails to perform as predicted, the sale is the other hand, the new missiles, if they areanywhere near the target, become attracted to theheat of the target s engine, and regardless of its eva-sive action, they finally home in and hit their are salespeople with good empathy. Theysense the reactions of customers and are able toadjust to these reactions. They are not simply boundby a prepared sales track, but they function in termsof the real interaction between themselves and cus-tomers.

7 Sensing what customers are feeling, they areable to change pace, double back on the track, andmake whatever creative modifications might be nec-essary to home in on the target and close the to ConquerThe second of the basic qualities absolutelyneeded by good salespeople is a particular kind ofego drivewhich Makes them want and need to makethe sale in a personal or ego way, not merely for themoney to be gained. Their feelings must be that theyhaveto make the sale; the customer is there to helpthem fulfill their personal needs. In effect, to topsalespeople, the sale the conquest provides apowerful means of enhancing their egos. Their self-120 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW July August 1964 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW July August 1964121pictures improve dramatically by virtue of conquest,and diminish with of the nature of all selling, salespeoplewill fail to sell more often than they will , since failure tends to diminish their self-pic-tures, their egos cannot be so weak that the poorself-picture continues for too long a time.

8 Rather,the failure must act as a trigger as a motivationtoward greater efforts which with success willbring the ego enhancement they seek. A subtle bal-ance must be found between (a) an ego partiallyweakened in precisely the right way to need a greatdeal of enhancement (the sale) and (b) an ego suffi-ciently strong to be motivated by failure but not tobe shattered by s empathy, coupled with theirintense ego drive, enables them to home in on thetarget effectively and make the sale. They have thedrive, the need to make the sale, and their empathygives them the connecting tool with which to do EffectsIn this discussion of the relationship of empathyand ego drive to successful selling, we will treatthese dynamic factors as separate , they are separate in that someone can have agreat deal of empathy and any level of ego drive extremely strong to extremely weak.

9 Someone withpoor empathy can also have any level of ego , as determinants of sales ability, empathy andego drive act on and, in fact, reinforce each with strong ego drives have maximummotivation to fully utilize whatever empathy theypossess. Needing the sale, they are not likely to lettheir empathy spill over and become ego needs for the conquest are not likely toallow them to side with the customer; instead, itspurs them on to use their knowledge of the cus-tomer fully to make the the other hand, people with little or no egodrive are hardly likely to use empathy in a persuasivemanner. They understand people and may know per-fectly well what things they might say to close thesale effectively, but their understanding is apt tobecome sympathy.

10 If they do not need the conquest,their very knowledge of the real needs of a potentialcustomer may tell them that the customer in factshould not buy. Since they do not need the sale in aninner personal sense, they then may not persuade thecustomer to buy. So we frequently say in our evalua-tions of potential salespeople, This person has fineempathy, but he (or she) is not likely to use it per-suasively he (or she) will not use it to close. Thus, there is a dynamic relationship betweenempathy and ego drive. It takes a combination of thetwo, each working to reinforce the other eachenabling the other to be fully utilized to make thesuccessful for BalanceIt calls for a very special, balanced ego to need thesale intensely and yet allow the salesperson to lookclosely at the customer and fully benefit from anempathic perception of the customer s reactions , there are a number of possible permutationsof empathy and drive.