Part 3: Humble, Hungry, People Smart. In this blog series, we review Patrick M. Lencioni’s three indispensable virtues of an ideal team player.
In Patrick Lencioni’s book, “The Ideal Team Player,” he outlines the key characteristics that your ideal team player should have – Humble, Hungry and People Smart. At SalesCORE, our core focus is on the sales discipline, and our experience aligns with Lencioni when searching for best sales leaders.
Why is it important to be humble?
Humility in a sales person is critical. A humble person is comfortable with the fact that they don’t have all of the answers. They’re more open to asking questions and learning. This fact-finding mission helps to reveal what’s going on in a client’s business, establishes their goals and allows the sales person to deliver creative solutions to help clients reach. A humble sales person knows the importance of advance research before attending a meeting. They don’t arrive with all of the answers, but rather, they bring new insights and can intelligently challenge the status quo. In today’s selling environment, you need to come out of the gate by bringing value.
What’s the appropriate amount of hunger?
Hunger for success is what drives the sales person but it needs to extend beyond their needs and their sales goals. A successful sales leader has the true desire to see others succeed. They are hungry to work for a company that can make a difference in a client’s business and bring value that can impact the client’s customers. They want to reach their sales goal but they also want to know that they can have a significant and quantifiable impact on their customer’s business. The hunger is beyond the carrot, it’s the pasture of carrots.
How can you be people smart?
Sales professionals today sell as a team and successful teams work well together. A people smart person has the emotional intelligence to understand that they’re not alone on an island selling a product or service. EQ gives them the ability to connect with all areas of the business so that they can provide a well-rounded experience to the client. It also allows them to be in tune to the customer and their operating style. Empathy and understanding are what places the great sales person ahead of the pack.
SalesCORE works with clients to build the ideal sales team with humble, hungry, people smart players. We do this by getting to know your business with a 360-degree view of where you are, where you want to be, and what’s standing in your way.
By holding up the mirror, we’ll help you see where you can improve and grow. Stem to stern top to bottom we help you make those needles move.