What is the one request that you will never hear a customer make?

Before I answer that question, let me ask you another question first: What type of salesperson does your customer need you to be?

The answer is clear-cut and straightforward. The customer needs you to be a salesperson who can help them to quickly gather the information they need to make an informed decision at a low cost. Recent research substantiates the fact that customers increasingly want to make faster purchase decisions (in some cases up to 40% faster.)

Companies are coming to the realization that the capability to make good decisions quickly provides a competitive advantage for them. If they can spend less time evaluating their options in making a purchase decision and realize the value from the decision they made more quickly (reduce time to market for new products, increase sales productivity, boost profitability and so on) then they can gain a competitive edge in their market over their competitors.

This means that busy, distracted customers don’t want to spend one minute more than necessary to evaluate products and services for purchase. They don’t want to spend six months to make a decision if they could gather the necessary decision data in two months. Similarly they don’t want to spend three weeks to make a decision if you can supply the information they need in a week.

The question is who is holding them back? Well, you are.

Increasingly, customers need a specific set of expertise from salespeople. They need salespeople with specialized knowledge, experience and expertise who can help them move from “Interest” to “Decision” as fast as possible. A study by the Gartner Group found that customers preferred to work with product experts or industry experts instead of salespeople by a factor of more than two to one. Customers are making the judgment that salespeople without specialized knowledge are roadblocks, not resources that can help them succeed.

But, as I look at the job descriptions for open sales positions at client companies and on job boards the desired qualifications that are listed still tend to be these increasingly valueless “heroic” qualities: hunter, closer, extrovert, aggressive. None of these supposed sales virtues speak to the needs of the customer to be able to quickly gather information to make good decisions at a low cost.

What type of salesperson does your customer need you to be? They need you to be a curious, analytical, problem-solver with developed expertise and experience in your product or their industry. The need you to be a specialist who can help them make good purchase decisions quickly.

When I work with companies to help them develop the processes to hire the right salespeople who can help to consistently them accelerate their sales, I invariably get push-back from a CEO or CSO who will complain that curious, analytical, problem-solvers don’t have the “sales personality” or the “sales DNA” to win orders from customers.

I ask them if they know the one request that they will never receive from a prospect or customer. They say no. My answer is that a customer will never pick up the phone and call you and say “Andy, I like your product. I like your company. I even like John, the sales guy on my account. But, could you please send over someone who is more “salesy?” I just don’t think John is “salesy” enough to help us make the decision to purchase your product.”

I can guarantee that is never going to happen. Yet, on the other hand, customers will rarely call you and tell you that your salesperson isn’t knowledgeable enough about your product or their business to help them make a decision to go with you. They will just buy from your competition.

Hire salespeople whose knowledge and expertise are aligned with the needs of your customers to gather the information they need to make a good decision quickly and watch your win rates increase and your sales cycles shrink.

Andy Paul is a leading sales expert, author, speaker and consultant. He teaches sellers how to maximize the power of their sales processes to move customers to make fast and favorable decisions. He was recently recognized by Forbes as one of the leading global experts on social selling.

Andy is the author of Amp Up Your Sales: Powerful Strategies That Move Customers To Make Fast, Favorable Decisions (AMACOM Books, 2014), and the author of Zero-Time Selling: 10 Essential Steps to Accelerate Every Company’s Sales.

These books reflect Andy’s experiences in helping sales teams succeed in today’s hypercompetitive environment through a focus on creating tangible differentiation that wins more orders quickly.

Andy has helped boost the performance of teams selling products and services as diverse as complex multi-million dollar communications networks to collectible professional sports memorabilia. He’s worked with raw technology start-ups and Fortune 1000 companies and everything in between. And he has worked with nearly every channel type ranging from franchise networks to retailers, dealers, distributors, VAR and OEMs.

Now he is doing what he loves best – sharing his unique insights about sales strategies and building successful sales teams with companies, business owners, executives and sales professionals to help them reach their growth goals

He works out of offices in New York City and San Diego.