Sales

What We Can Learn From the Greatest Salespeople

June 21, 2011

What makes salespeople successful?

Is there an archetypal salesperson that can thrive in any situation, any industry, and any business cycle? Or do all great salespeople need to be aggressive, pushy, and short-sighted like they’re stereotypically portrayed? And, as we move forward, does the 21st century call for an altogether different type of salesperson?

Michael Jordan, Blue Dunk, Lisle, IL, 1987

Inc.com recently ran a very interesting article on the 10 greatest salespeople of all time. While I’m not sure how Inc. ranked the nominees, I do agree that the ones they selected are worthy of any possible edition of the Sales Hall of Fame.

Perhaps there have been other salespeople who have generated more revenue or profits for themselves or their organizations. Or perhaps there are other sales pros who are better known or well loved. But the 10 people Inc. chose paint a nice historical picture from the earliest days of organized sales forces at the beginning of the 20th century to the late 20th century’s hard-driving, disciplined enterprise sales culture symbolized by Oracle co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison.

For each person in the list, I thought of a key winning characteristic or strategy they have come to embody in the annals of salesmanship.

1. John Patterson, Founder, NCR

His genius was in organizing his sales force and standardizing the sales cycle with scripts and milestones, which takes the guess work out of managing a growing sales team.

2. David Ogilvy, Advertising Executive

Ogilvy is the ultimate paradigm of customer relationship development, knowing how to establish a rapport with a stranger, build upon it, and bring sophistication to sales.

3. Mary Kay Ash, Founder, Mary Kay Cosmetics

She showed that women could be great salespeople too, and really redefined the meaning of “incentives” in sales (awarding pink Cadillacs to her top performers) , imbuing in it cultural and social values.

4. Dale Carnegie, Bestselling Author and Lecturer

While he was not the first person to highlight the importance of good team dynamics, Carnegie certainly was one of the most successful and influential believers of that principle. His book is a blueprint for success in society and sales.

5. Joe Girard, Legendary Car Salesman

Girard really drove home the importance of numbers in sales. Today, that’s even more important as salespeople have powerful sales analytics at their fingertips, which help optimize the sales process and the organizational structure of a sales team, regardless of its size.

6. Erica Feidner, Highly Successful Piano Salesperson

Feidner is ultimately the most successful piano salesperson because she knows how to deliver a compelling value proposition to the customer, something that really touches the customer’s heart and soul. In her career, she sold more than $40 million worth of Steinway pianos, a product that typically suffers from long sales cycles and little repeat purchase volume.

7. Ron Popeil, Infomercial Pitchman and Founder of Ronco

He coined the phrase “But wait, there’s more!” and created the blueprint for the infomercial’s incredible success over the last 30 years. Furthermore, he shows us that the advent of new technologies does not necessarily mean that passion and exuberance cannot be transmitted through newer media.

8. Larry Ellison, Co-founder and CEO, Oracle

Quite simply, Ellison sets the standard for building a sales team that is aggressive and overachieving, yet incredibly loyal. Hate him or love him, you have to accept that he influenced countless generations of salespeople and in the process built one of the most lucrative technology businesses in the world.

9. Zig Ziglar, Sales Expert and Motivational Speaker

Ziglar should be credited with much of the popularization of the modern sales philosophy, which included his tireless public speaking engagements and his numerous books on sales best practices and sales methodology.

10. Napoleon Barragan, Founder, 1-800-Mattress

He saw the enormous potential of e-commerce before everyone else. Barragan was a salesperson that fully grasped the changing technology landscape and made full use of it, showing that technology would ultimately be a blessing for salespeople.

No matter how the sales landscape changes over the course of the next 100 years, we can learn a lot from those 10 sales Hall of Famers.

But the question remains: in the 21st century, with rapidly growing and immensely profitable Internet and social media companies like Groupon or Zynga, will there be new paradigms of sales excellence that vary drastically from the modus operandi of previous luminaries?

Looking at how much has changed in the last 100 years, I bet the list of greatest sales people in the 21st century will be very different. For example, Forbes writer Brian Fetherstonhaugh offers a few predictions of how technology may change selling (and buyer behavior) in the future.

Might the 2111 list of 10 greatest salespeople bring about new sales champions who leveraged the enormous reach of Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites, in ways that we haven’t thought of before?

Tien Anh Nguyen is a research analyst with OpenView Venture Partners. For more from Tien Anh, check out his blog and follow him on Twitter @tienanh.

Chief Business Officer at UserTesting

Tien Anh joined UserTesting in 2015 after extensive financial and strategic experiences at OpenView, where he was an investor and advisor to a global portfolio of fast-growing enterprise SaaS companies. Until 2021, he led the Finance, IT, and Business Intelligence team as CFO of UserTesting. He currently leads initiatives for long term growth investments as Chief Business Officer at UserTesting.