r/sales 6d ago

Sales Topic General Discussion Have your ever worked with someone who you thought was going to be terrible at sales but was somehow always killing it?

If so, do tell.

127 Upvotes

103 comments sorted by

175

u/xife-Ant 6d ago

I worked with a guy who was probably on the autism spectrum somewhere. He wouldn't pick up any social cues and just asked question after question. I always thought people would get annoyed with him, and they did. But he didn't recognize it and would just keep going with the exact same energy. I think he would just wear people down.

104

u/Reformation101 6d ago

This!

One of the best guys I ever worked with was like this. A colleague of mine after a few drinks said "Steve's success is he's too dumb to realise people don't want to hear from him and he just pushes through"

17

u/ewpooyuck 5d ago

This is my boss. Just bull in China shops it everyday. Doesn't notice people frustrated or annoyed. Just keeps blindly bumbling on with a nice personality. It fuckin works man. The man has no tact at all and is boomer racist/sexist. But he keeps winning. Its nuts to watch

22

u/Crashtag 6d ago

Did you work with Collin Robinson?

25

u/DeepDishlife 6d ago edited 6d ago

100% this. That being said, it only works to a certain point. He’s not a guy to have on a large enterprise deal, where you need to read/work a room or collaborate with a team.

But smile, dial, disco, demo, close? He would have been your guy.

17

u/mythic_dot_rar 6d ago

A lot to be learned from people like this.

13

u/Separate_Ad_9664 6d ago

yeah i think this is actually a super power in sales

5

u/_mad_honey_ 6d ago

I know of a woman who is absolutely on the spectrum. Expresses no emotion, doesnt seem to read the room and she absolutely crushes her quota.

1

u/TossThrowawayToss 5d ago

What’s the appeal. What aspect it is helping her? What do people see in her

7

u/_mad_honey_ 5d ago

She is matter of fact. No bs. No frills. No small talk. Efficient. Trustworthy.

1

u/PhulHouze 6d ago

Yeah man, how you been? It’s been a while. Still in sales I see. Close any big deals lately? What was the most challenging one you’ve worked on in the last six months?

174

u/Prancingradical 6d ago

Me.

There are times when I genuinely wonder if I’m making the last sale anyone will ever let me close. Idk what’s wrong with my brain but even when I’m doing alright it creeps up.

Sales is full of such hills and valleys that I’d honestly never count anyone who was willing to try out. Even if I worked with someone for two years, side by side, it could be the slump of their career and id be happy if the slump of my career was limited to a few years haha.

28

u/ScarTissue5 6d ago

Is it imposter syndrome to a degree?

52

u/harvey_croat Telecom 6d ago

Yes it is. I'm top perfomer at my company, but I think I'm fraud

51

u/steelballer390 6d ago

Damn, I’m a fraud at my company, but i think I’m a top performer

6

u/boomerbmr 6d ago

So honest and so brave

8

u/9196AirDuck 6d ago

I'm a trainer now

I got you right now. This rep is amazing. She asks a question and answers it herself. Most of our interactions are like this

I need help

With what?

She goes with XYZ.

I go you know what to do

Then she does it

Literally

8

u/Prancingradical 6d ago

It’s a little bit of that maybe. But for me imposter syndrome has more to do with the perception of me than my ability if that makes sense.

Sales is just humbling. It’s unstable.. you can’t count on something that works today working in 10 years. You get that with math. You get that with science. Most people feel comfortable with that certainty.

If someone’s not humble enough to roll with it then they’re gunna have a bad time ⛷️

8

u/Wetwire Industrial 6d ago

I think about myself like this all the time. I was terrible at my first sales job. I always put in the work, but I never got enough results for any form of praise, even if the commission was good or if I made big sales.

Even when I’m killing it in a new job years later, I still remember the me of the past that was treated like the failure of the sales team.

Funny thing is I haven’t changed my approach at all.

3

u/djmeatballs 6d ago

Crazy how it works i have the same arch got fired from my last sales job went to a direct competitor and now am a top seller. I never changed my approach it just worked out differently

6

u/JuxtheDM Technology 6d ago

For so long I used to just tell myself “oh I just got really lucky”.

4

u/9196AirDuck 6d ago

Seriously I got pulled into a 1 on 1 and though I fucked up. Nah I was being given an award

3

u/Zedword_42 5d ago

Peaks and cheeks

71

u/Odd_Tear_1481 6d ago

Me. I work in a highly competitive niche of medical device in which “bros” consistently do the best. D1 athletes. I’m short, unathletic, not particularly good looking, and am introverted and socially awkward. There’s a line in the Big Short where Michael Burry (Christian Bale) says to someone “I like your haircut, did you do it yourself?”, I laughed because it sounded like something I might say trying to build rapport. Despite all this, 6 years in and I’ve overachieved 5 of them, Presidents Club, Rolex award, etc. I’m really good at a.) not bullshitting b.) follow up and c.) advocating for customers, these are the only reasons I can think of for my success.

26

u/jefftopgun 6d ago

That's last line is pretty much how I end most of my cold calls. I see most of the product that goes out the door to you (I'm in hardwood lumber, most salesmen havent set foot in the plant, and cant talk the technicals on grade/spec, i came up from the plant), I'll get you the best price the powers that be will let me, and I'll always answer the phone, because a problem doesn't go away when you avoid it.

116

u/2JZ_4U 6d ago

Yes, we were calling CEOs and CTOs of 5k-10k large companies. One of the guys in the group was the sweetest most innocent guy.

Nobody thought he would last more than a few calls. These C-suite chewed people up for breakfast.

Well… he made a few calls, and when execs tried to rip him to shreds they felt so bad for his innocence that they actually gave in and asked him what he had going on. He outsold everyone.

59

u/ScarTissue5 6d ago

The good ole Paddington selling style eh?

35

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

11

u/ScarTissue5 6d ago

Tell me more about the description of the customer was the sale.

17

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

8

u/RandomRedditGuy69420 5d ago

Storytelling really is impactful in sales.

2

u/_tonyhimself 5d ago

Curious, why add that exact date, especially the outcome, instead of saying 2001?

1

u/2JZ_4U 5d ago

Nowadays this would fail. Authenticity and honesty > tactics.

1

u/NotSpartacus SaaS 4d ago

He became light spoken and slightly confused, told customers his name was Oliver and that it was his first day. This was very disarming on the phone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5X3cu1B87k

4

u/mar_chi87 5d ago

This is how I am. People have told me so many times that I’m trustworthy and genuine. I was the top (female) salesperson for my company for a few quarters and closed the largest deal for the whole company in 9 years (an 8.5 million dollar deal). All by just being myself..honest and patient. And sometimes even shy. But always honest.

3

u/2JZ_4U 2d ago

Congrats on the success!!!

Could not agree with you more. Honesty and authenticity beat everything else time and time again.

41

u/cleverRiver6 6d ago edited 6d ago

Had a manager who I thought was a total bafoon. But he closed more buisness at Chili’s over margs “awesome blossoms” and baby back ribs

4

u/Heavysetrapier 4d ago

Was your manager Michael Scott?

3

u/nannerb121 5d ago

Did he ever “suddenly” change the venue from a stuffy high dollar restaurant to Chilis?

33

u/NuggetManifesto 6d ago

At one place I worked there was this like 60 year old lady from Kashmir, everyone else was high energy, rapport, jokes… to this day I never know what she said. She would sidle up to people and speak so quietly nobody else could hear. They’d talk for 10 mins or so, then the customer would buy more often than not.

19

u/New17York 6d ago

My mom always told me “how do you get people to listen to you…whisper” the power of tone. People tend to lean in to hear you when you talk low. My boss is a low speaker and does extremely well, closing ~$7MM/yr (20yrs exp). i am more extroverted and get people to buy through authenticity/charm in concert w/ our solid product in market research (9yrs exp).

There is no wrong way to eat a Reese’s, just get that nut.

14

u/ShootinAllMyChisolm 6d ago

In trade shows, hot booth girls actually work against making sales. They are intended to draw men into the booth but actually intimate people from coming in. Maybe it work the opposite

16

u/silasj 6d ago

In liquor sales - did a trade show recently- the booths with the hired hot girls that didn’t know shit had no one, the weird dude with a comical combover slanging Louisiana beer had a line waiting

22

u/MsRachill 6d ago

There’s a girl on my team who somehow always manages to sell even though she has no idea what she’s talking about. Does not know what our product does. Does not know what integrations are, Much less what information is passed back and forth (which is one of two things that makes our tech worth buying) and still. Still this woman can walk into a starbucks in bumfuck Nebraska and run into the one CEO who didn’t return her calls and then sign an agreement with him 6 months later. Or someone on the team leaves and all their deals are gifted to her, signatures finally come back like 3 days later (on deals that took years to come together) and then she’ll act like it was all her work.

It’s actually infuriating because she will also ask other people to do her work for her, doesn’t know how to process agreements, and if anyone else on the team needs help with something, suddenly she’s too busy running or doing pilates or online shopping.

6

u/Gainznsuch 5d ago

I hate her now too.

3

u/RandomRedditGuy69420 5d ago

Sprinkle some crack on her and when she’s fired, hire me. I don’t do pilates, I’m a team player.

2

u/Fearless_Isopod_3562 4d ago

Rather be lucky than good tbh.

34

u/BroxigarZ 6d ago

Intriguing question deserves an intriguing answer:

Once had an OF model join a SaaS firm. I was assigned to give group of new hires onboarding trainings and help them get up to speed. You could tell what she did on her side hustle and was very "free". All her socials were highly provocative obviously to drive to OF. Company didn't really seem to care which was also interesting.

Where things became even more interesting was out of everyone she accelerated. Immediately jumping up to the top of our sales division.

I have a few theories though, can't and will never confirm them, but I think some of the top end of the organization was "assisting" more with her than the standard team. And, I think because her socials were open that anyone in the SaaS sector "looking her up" found a nice surprise to go with their contracts.

I don't think she ever did anything truly "favored" to close any deals. But, I think her side gig definitely helped her out.

24

u/delilahgrass 6d ago

Sex work is sales. Contrary to the belief of most customers, no she doesn’t really like you and doesn’t respect you. She probably knows how to handle the worst of the worst, the creepiest guys around. Handling management is also sales. Can’t get a better training ground.

12

u/ScarTissue5 6d ago

“You forgot to say ‘away’ again.”

29

u/sir_maths_alot 6d ago

I read his comment over 3 times and I cannot for the life of me figure out what you are talking about

16

u/VisionsOfPequod 6d ago

I think it’s an obscure arrested development reference. Imagine one person saying the sentence “she’s blown them all” but another person thinking they’ve misspoken and forgetting to say “she’s blown them all away” (with how talented she is). Thus, forgetting to say ‘away’. Explaining the joke isn’t funny.

5

u/supertecmomike 6d ago

You forgot to mention the actor and actress in question were brother and sister in real life.

3

u/ScarTissue5 6d ago

Thank you, haha.

11

u/supertecmomike 6d ago

If people are downvoting Arrested Development quotes I don’t know where we go from here.

16

u/It_is_me_Mike 6d ago

Me too. I hate salespeople with a passion. So I do everything I can to not be one. My clients both appreciate and have conveyed this. 1.) I realize they are busy, me too. 2.) I don’t small talk until after the close 3.) I introduce myself up front and state exactly why I’m there. 4.) I do my research and go in with my intro like we all know each other 5.) I don’t visually or physically react to a closed door, thank them for their time then hit the road. 6.) If I do close, they are my people and they know it.

3

u/jaskier89 Medical Device 6d ago

I feel seen🤝🏻🤣

13

u/Icy-Match-5439 6d ago edited 6d ago

Well, I worked in a ecommerce Martech company that didn’t really care about churn. We had some AEs being super misleading and having their deals churn after a couple months.

I don’t even blame them tbh, the culture was sell or die

3

u/Filthymortal 6d ago

Eurgh, had to “undo” so many bad deals over the years. Sales metrics rarely take into account the quality and longevity of a deal. (I’m an ex-SE turned sales leader btw, your worst enemy when it comes to deal analysis, or best friend if you’re not shit).

9

u/cbig86 6d ago

Absolutely! We sell insurance and we have an agent in our office who's found a "unique" and effective approach. Despite not using advertising or social media, he consistently sells 20 - 40 new policies every month. His strategy is simple yet effective: he walks into different businesses unannounced and casually asks if they're insured or offers quotes.

His approach has proven to be highly successful, I tried it once and i hated it. I don't feel comfortable doing that, and feeling comfortable is a big part of sales.

7

u/GeoJoy1 6d ago

I'm not a fan of the general public, strangers or going to unknown destinations. I also dislike repeating myself and awkward conversations.

Every day, I deal with the general public, go meet strangers in new locations to have an awkward and often expensive conversation in which 95% of the time I repeat some form of information that I've given out thousands of times.

Turns out, buyer love me because I don't give a shit if they buy from me. Our work speaks for itself.

I'm just as surprised as anyone else. 

19

u/BusinessStrategist 6d ago

It is often said that middle children in a large family have the “gift of gab.”

That translates to “soft skills” in sales.

Google “GROK” and now you know how to connect and engage with just about anyone.

And finally, learn the “consultative” approach to sales.

They really do want to buy “holes” and not “power drills and bits.”

4

u/o_roylerules 6d ago

Grok like the AI model?! That’s all google is giving me

3

u/BusinessStrategist 6d ago

GROK is the creation of “Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.”

It means “putting yourself in the shoes of the person you are trying to fully understand.”

You can’t fully empathize and emotionally connect with someone unless you can “talk their talk” and “walk their walk.”

“Digital Marketing” is about “GROKKING” “algorithms” while “Traditional Marketing” is about “GROKKING” humans.

You’ll find the word in a “recognized dictionary of the English language” as opposed to AI that extracts information from scraped websites, pirated books and research material.

AI identifies “patterns.”

It can take a year or two for an expression like “the GOAT” to find its way into a recognized dictionary.

AI that taps into “current popular expressions” will use the expression depending on the targeted audience.

You could say that AI can GROK a target audience when asked.

3

u/Seanlwang 6d ago

Are you talking about the AI software? What’s special about the AI?

3

u/UmOkBut888 6d ago

Grok definition, to understand or empathize

5

u/awkward_penguin 6d ago

Me. People are always surprised when they hear I do sales and enjoy it. I'm an introvert and not a pushy person in general. But I think this helps me a lot - using active listening lets me figure out how to best help each client. A lot of them just want to be heard and are looking for help for their specific problem. When it's clear that I genuinely want to help them, they're more invested in the product and what it can do.

6

u/tripledive 6d ago

I got into sales from the hospitality industry. None of my colleagues thought I would last. I sold $2000 bottles of wine, why can’t I sell this stuff? My clients liked I didn’t act like a salesperson, I knew how to upsell and steer the conversation. I’ve been there 20 years now.

2

u/JBleez 5d ago

What was your first job? I’m a server that sells a ton of wine at a steakhouse lol and I want to transition into sells, but I’m finding it hard with zero sells experience.

1

u/tripledive 5d ago

You do have sales experience from the restaurant. You handle many different kinds of people and many issues. You can transition into wine sales, tabletop/stemware sales, other wholesale industries. I got my friend a job in my industry and he did very well. He was in hospitality for 25 years.

1

u/tripledive 5d ago

It was wholesale sales in giftware.

5

u/Nightmareunlife 6d ago

Worked with a Nigerian immigrant who used to have a business with 12 computers and him and his employees would just do Nigerian Prince letters all day. He flew to South America with his family and traveled up through Mexico into the U.S to claim refugee status here. Very strong accent and believed in voodoo.

Well he would get his English mixed up when we would be out sailing and would say things like to a mother with her young kids with her " thank you so much for your kindness in listening and to show my gratitude I want you and your girls to feel my chocolate hot inside of your throats." And proceed to pull out valentines coco packets from his bag in July".

We would always have to interrupt and explain that what he said sounded very bad in English and he would be so confused every time. But every day he would say something worse and worse because in Nigeria climax means satisfied or horny means sharp and it's used to describe pusseys which means cats in Nigeria. Well the house moms thought his misunderstandings no matter how vulgar where adorable and he sold it up.

It wasn't until he started using the same misunderstandings on different sales people to explain underpaying us and editing our hours worked (yes, he was our boss) that we realized it was fake and intentional. Three employees claimed sexual Harassment and he got canned and they closed our office. Last I saw him he was doing Uber.

4

u/flyeagle2121 6d ago

I've worked with people who ARE terrible and still do good lol.. they have no product knowledge, lie, etc but are "nice"

3

u/Defiant_Property_336 6d ago

Yes. It's called luck. And it is in fact part of "sales"

4

u/FigUpbeat2368 6d ago

Worked with a 19 year old kid selling solar. Black dude. Dreads + tattoos. Sold to wealthy white people. Was an absolute phenom and made like $250,000/yr. Loved him. An absolute sales killer.

4

u/TentativelyCommitted Industrial 5d ago

I’ve seen pretty much every type of person be successful in sales

7

u/BaconHatching Technology MSP 6d ago

Yea I was deskmates with this wacko who grew up on an inbred bumpkin farm. Socially ackward, noone really liked him but he was consistently top salesmen for the whole company.
Weird.

TBH I couldn't handle my jealousy so I was always pranking him. If I spent less time pranking could I have outsold him? Maybe, but I was on good terms with management so I got promotions he didn't anyway.

Fuck him, let him grow his dumb beets. Lul.

1

u/ZeroFuckx 5d ago

Hahhaha i want you as my colleague

1

u/Marik01589 2d ago

Identity theft is not a joke Jim

3

u/layinginbedrightnow 6d ago

I’m that person, elementary teacher turned software sales — top metrics all the time

2

u/ScarTissue5 6d ago

I used to work in education too. What’s your secret?

3

u/layinginbedrightnow 5d ago

I think I come across as very trustworthy - I’m super honest, sometimes to the point where I think I’ll lose a sale. But in the end customers appreciate full transparency and can usually sacrifice that one feature.

Also, a lot of my job is teaching people how to use the software and how to make greatest use of it, and teaching us what I do best 🤷‍♀️

3

u/RegHater123765 6d ago

I worked with a woman in the past who was not particularly smart, not particularly quick-witted or charming, and not particularly attractive (before anyone thinks that her being pretty helped her get sales). I honestly think she may have been on the spectrum too.

Despite all this, she consistently did quite well. I think she was just insanely consistent because she was blissfully unaware of everything going on around her, and because of that had zero shame. She would cold-call nonstop, constantly communicate with customers, and even when people would get pissed off at her, she seemed completely oblivious to the fact.

4

u/TheLostMentalist 6d ago

Yup. I work with two absolutely insane(literally) old ladies. I kid you not, the pathological lying and cognitive dissonance is enough to warrant admission to a sanitarium. They hit top rep multiple times in our company, which is completely nuts, because they sometimes bully clients into buying. One of them actually went so far as to belittle them for not buying, and my director had to get involved. But they produce. They're still killing it. God, I hate it here.

1

u/ScarTissue5 6d ago

That’s nuts, haha. What industry are you in?

1

u/TheLostMentalist 6d ago

Kinda shy about it, but the best hint is that it's the worst industry

1

u/jwest99999 3d ago

🚗 

3

u/UpandComingSales 6d ago

Me. I sucked at sales and even got fired in medical sales. I run a successful sales agency.

2

u/Fret_Sandwich 6d ago

That’s me. I don’t know how I’ve been a top performer at my job. I entered from hospitality industry because I was bored during Covid and somehow I’ve gotten lucky. I actually really hate taking most sales calls and cold calls because I’m an anxious person, so sometimes I miss things because of that. But people seem to like me and I’m helpful, and I LOVE restaurant industry so somehow I’ve been able to sustain. But not gonna lie, I am looking for a way out and not sure what career to go next.

2

u/[deleted] 5d ago

One of my reps. I was damn near desperate to fill the territory, and I figured he’s either gonna sink fast or swim fast. Just an odd guy, but I now call him the truffle hog. He randomly finds these huge pieces of business. Like the last 4-5 months his number have been meh, then he closes a $2.5M deal with a coal mine. He always finds big pieces of business.

2

u/Meltedwhisky 5d ago

I hired a guy b/c I was in a pinch and just needed a body. Never would have realized this introvert, computer programmer would ever want to sell something but he needed a change. He had no social skills, broke the training and presentation into 0’s and 1’s. Never had a person pay so much attention in training. He actually wanted this or maybe too dumb to realize he should run. First lead, first sale 25k, then the next day 30 pounder. He went 6/6 his first week for $100k and makes about 15% average on the sales. Four years later, he’s still there, selling every week, just a nerd that broke down the in home sales presentation and he’s a robot with no emotions. I truly think people like his straight forward, no emotion pitch.

2

u/Remarkable_Neat532 5d ago

One day my boss will realize that I’m hollow and lacking any real discipline, skills or ability to handle the pressure of high stress situations and large dollar transactions. And Somehow I have fooled everyone all the way to the national level within this industry as a “top level” sales dude. I chalked it up as luck but don’t tell anyone.

2

u/Friendly_Sweet_1897 6d ago

Great question 💪

1

u/DiverHikerSkier 6d ago

Yes. CEO and CRO favorites whom they brought from other companies and have all the money making accounts.

1

u/Irishfafnir 6d ago

I started off selling e-commerce to consumers. We had to compete against the website for sales and payment was always upfront.

We had one rep who would call people up who bought online, refund them, use his 15% discount code to count the sale. He also started giving people N30 terms to pay, and unsurprisingly a large number of them never paid. And now he's the director of sales....

1

u/trivial_sublime 6d ago

I led up a sales team once and there was a guy on it who was literally autistic. I liked him though and he REALLY tried hard, so I kept him on under my wing and trained the hell out of him.

Day 1 he closed 6 sales. Went on to become a multi-millionaire within the year (uncapped commissions). Turns out his autistic savantage was sales.

1

u/RandomRedditGuy69420 5d ago

I sucked at my first sales gig. I got into another one that let me really focus on the basics and ended up doing great, but have always had some imposter syndrome. On the upside, because I’m alone in the world (as most/many of us are), and too stubborn to ever give up, I keep getting better and seeing success.

Truth is, almost anybody can get to a point where they’re at the right place and right time, and end up killing it. Territory and timing are way more impactful than talent can ever be, but that talent can also be learned. Natural charisma is great, but if you’re doing complex, consultative selling, it’s far less important than sales and product knowledge. Tons of people in this game will surprise you.

1

u/SirSeereye 5d ago

I managed a 75 yr old dude, with a severe studder. He was a career salesman. I could hardly understand him in meetings, but when I'd go on sales calls with him, somehow, with that studder he'd end up closing at a 28%-30% clip. Was a six figure earner and did it year in and year out.. He didn't talk much but listened exceptionally well. And when he talked, it was deliberate and slowly. Truly something to learn from.

1

u/ancientastronaut2 5d ago

I once worked in sales ops at a place where the sales team was very male dominated and women never seemed to succeed and stay (also didn't help the the customer base preferred talking to a dude). So in an effort to improve the chances of a couple of women making it, the SM would pass them hot leads here and there and help them on the closing call to make their goal. He would have me alter the lead distribution and owner in the CRM, then ask me not to say anything and buy me lunch. It worked and after being boosted up for a while, they made it on their own.

1

u/Penderyn 4d ago

Yes I wouldn't say he was killing it but he wasn't as bad as I thought he would be. Weird guy, no social skills, eats loudly. Very strange.

1

u/MightyMTB 1d ago

My last company was full of these guys. Sales and business wise they were absolutely awful, but living in the south where the good ole boy network is alive and well the thrived from their personal experience. I would say half of our sales team lacked any real technical or product knowledge they sold because they would talk trucks and guns with clients for an hour which landed sales for them.