Have you heard the new sales guy, he’s really good isn’t he?

I was asked this by a colleague when I was part of a large rapidly growing team many years ago. As we hot-desked I made a point of sitting near him the next day.

This guy was slick, very confident, ”sounded” super professional, seeing off objections as if they irritations. By lunchtime I had heard enough.

At lunch the colleague who had flagged him couldn’t resist coming up and asking “well, what did you think?”

She was taken aback when I said “he’s dreadful, really awful”

The guy had spent the whole morning on the back foot overcoming objections that he should never have been facing in the first place, asking the minimum of questions he could get away with before diving into telling the prospects what he wanted them to hear. He could undoubtedly talk well but was the absolute antithesis of a sales professional.

To be fair he was bright and it didn’t take too long to coach the bad traits out of him but without the help he would never have survived.

Even if someone sounds like they are great at sales… They may well be costing you business