Difference between good and great salesmen

I was having a discussion with a young engineer last week trying to advise her in her career path.  She has a lot of drive and ambition, but is young (i.e. inexperienced) so she doesn’t have some of the wisdom that comes with graying hair.

I told her that the difference between an engineer and a good engineer is that the good engineer knows that they don’t know everything and isn’t afraid to ask for help.

I went onto explain that the difference between a good engineer and a great engineer is that the great engineer knows that he doesn’t have to know everything.

The same holds true for good and great salespeople.  Don’t go into a call acting like you know everything, because you don’t.  I’ve never lost a sale by saying “I’d prefer to conference with my technical team before I answer that if you don’t mind.”  Go on to explain that you don’t want to answer incorrectly.

What you’ve proven is that you can be trusted, and whenever you say something as a fact, it should be taken as a fact.  If you just spew out “Oh yeah, we can do that” and then you can’t - that breech of trust is next to impossible to gain back.  And trust is what we’re all selling afterall.