[caminante]

  The best sales people I've worked with (in a software/services B2B 
  context - specifically when the customers are large companies) are 
  into long-term relationship and trust building.

Adding nuance, I was intrigued by an argument [0] that "relationship builders" weren't the out-performers in sales. In fact, they were the least likely to outperform in complex B2B sales.

[0] https://hbr.org/2011/09/selling-is-not-about-relatio

[fumar]

This is spot-on. As someone who works in enterprise sales, the best performers (if performance is based on growing investment from the client into x product), are challengers.

Sales tactics, like aggressive selling or throwing everything at the wall see what sticks, does not work in enterprise sales. The enterprise sell is complex and nuanced based on all the decision makers and influencers. It helps to be less of a "classic-sales" person and more of a doctor. You want to diagnose, understand, and provide a recommendation. Often-times like a doctor, the client (patient) does not want hear or accept the solution (antidote). This is where the challenger mindset comes into play, the great sales folks are pushing for the "true solution" even if the client-team is not onboard. It can take time to get a champion on the client side who sees the light. Just to be clear enterprise sales only works if the solution is solving true business outcomes.

For selling to new clients, its important for the sales team to run a client diagnostic to understand if the product (solution) has a right to win. Its just the start of understanding the client. I will say getting to know the client and their hurdles is crucial and the clients are experts at their problems. But, they are not experts at solving it. That is why the sales person is there and why the product exists.

[johansch]

It obviously differs quite a lot depending on the type of customer.

An example where I have seen the type of relationship-building salesperson outperform the aggressive kind of sales person: sales to large, stable incumbent companies in Europe.

[caminante]

For sure! I think the nuance (and if you read the article and the study) is the best performers are consistently "assertive" -- or in the middle between passive and aggressive.

[johansch]

Yeah. They have to be able to carefully thread that needle between pushy/assertive vs annoying quite carefully and intelligently. And counteract the pushy factor with charm/hosting skills.

.. and that's why this job is so highly paid (the kind of people I'm talking about: ~300k/year or more).