---
title: "The \"Common Sense\" of Sales Masters"
description: "Years ago, I led a sales team with two distinctive members: a veteran salesperson and a newcomer. The veteran, with over a decade of experience, was known for his analytical skills, yet his performance lagged behind the newcomer's. The newcomer, a young man with less than two years in sales, often sought the veteran's advice but achieved better results. The key difference: the veteran relied on speculation, while the newcomer sought facts directly from the customer."
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published: "2014-09-25"
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# The "Common Sense" of Sales Masters

> Years ago, I led a sales team with two distinctive members: a veteran salesperson and a newcomer. The veteran, with over a decade of experience, was known for his analytical skills, yet his performance lagged behind the newcomer's. The newcomer, a young man with less than two years in sales, often sought the veteran's advice but achieved better results. The key difference: the veteran relied on speculation, while the newcomer sought facts directly from the customer.

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Years ago, I led a sales team with two very distinctive members: a veteran salesperson and a newcomer.

The veteran, in his 40s, had been in sales for over a decade. He was experienced and skilled at analyzing customer psychology. Many salespeople sought his advice on tough problems, and everyone regarded him as an expert.

The newcomer was a young man in his 20s, with less than two years of sales experience—a typical greenhorn, lacking experience but bold. He often asked the veteran for advice. Strangely, the veteran's performance was not as good as the newcomer's.

One day, I stumbled upon the root of the problem.

One afternoon, the veteran reported on a deal's progress. We discussed the project in detail, identifying missing information and uncertainties. Based on his experience, he analyzed the issues thoroughly, listed various possibilities, made reasonable guesses about what each client wanted, and proposed corresponding strategies.

As soon as the veteran left, the newcomer came in. He also discussed a project, but instead of analyzing based on experience like the veteran, he picked up the phone and called the client to clarify the situation. After understanding the details, we studied the client's needs together and formulated a plan to move forward.

Watching the young man leave the office, I suddenly realized where the veteran's problem lay...

**Sales Hierarchy**

In sales, the term "expert" is always appealing. It represents someone who is invincible in business, can handle any project, and defeat any opponent. A quick online search reveals many such "experts" boasting about their achievements.

However, these stories are often fabricated and have little to do with reality. I have analyzed many similar cases and found that no matter how brilliant the success story, the pattern is the same: the protagonist sees through the customer's mind at a glance, then with a few words or an action, wins the customer over, and a legend is born. These are all lies.

Seeing through a customer's mind is not impossible, but the probability is extremely low. This is the famous "chicken crossing the road" principle in sales.

Why does the chicken cross the road? There are many reasons: going home, finding food, finding a hen, taking a walk, laying eggs, etc. If 100 people guess, they might come up with 100 reasons. Each person's chance of being right is only 1%, and the chance of being wrong is 99%. The only correct answer is to ask the chicken. Unless the chicken tells you, you can hardly guess correctly. Even if you guess right, it's luck, not skill.

In sales, "customer's mind" has a specific term: "buying motive." Motive is the customer's driving force or "personal reason" for purchasing. For example, when buying a car, the public reason is transportation, but the personal reason might be showing off or something else. In short, for the same product, customers' buying motives can vary greatly, far more complex than a chicken's motives.

An inexperienced new salesperson might guess correctly with a probability of 1/10,000, while a so-called expert, even if 100 times smarter, might guess correctly with a probability of 1/100. In B2B sales, the difference between 1/10,000 and 1/100 is not significant; both are essentially guesses.

"Expert" is a difficult concept to define in sales. Different industries and types of sales are hard to compare. Moreover, experts are limitless, so precise evaluation is tough. But sales always judges by results, so I think using "results" to rank levels is a good method. Based on this, I divide salespeople into six levels.

**Low-Level Beginners: Those Who Sell Things**

Novice: Basically can't sell anything.

These salespeople aren't necessarily new; years in the industry don't guarantee success. Their biggest problem is not finding the right method, but they think it's about finding the right customers. Their specialty is passively changing jobs.

Rookie: Sells occasionally.

Rookies sell from time to time, but they cry more than they laugh. They have some experience, but it may not be correct, working sometimes and failing other times, like Duan Yu's Six Meridian Sword. They are the ones in the company who always look up to others from the corner.

Junior Salesperson: Sells regularly.

In many companies, they are already the top 20%, but they don't know why they can sell. They have their own methods, which often work. They do some things right, but also often wrong, and the key issue is they don't know which is which. Once they close a deal, they think everything they did was right, and then they apply those "right" things to other projects, often with embarrassing results.

These three low-level types are separated from experts by a gap called "customer-centricity." It sounds simple, but most salespeople spend their entire lives unable to cross it. Because most of them drown in "self": my product, my company, my service, my order. Those who put up slogans like "customer-centric" have essentially torn them down from their hearts, because they don't understand what it means. It's not a slogan or an attitude, but a way of thinking and behaving. Human nature is self-interested, so getting salespeople to shift to altruism goes against nature. That's why good salespeople are essentially "abnormal"—they turn self-interest into altruism.

**The "Selfless" Expert Camp**

Quasi-Expert: Always sells.

These are professional salespeople who know why they can sell. They have a customer-oriented heart and a completely transformed mindset. They know what is right, and even if they occasionally make mistakes, they immediately know where they went wrong. They have mature skills, systematic methods, and established routines. However, such quasi-experts are rare, largely due to the environment in China. Almost all companies know sales is important, but few treat it as a systematic discipline. Even bosses think sales is just a group of smooth talkers, so how can they cultivate true professionals?

Expert: Sales is flawless.

Experts and quasi-experts have a blurry line. Experts possess all the skills of quasi-experts, mastering the logic, methods, processes, and techniques of sales, and through years of training, these are ingrained. But unlike quasi-experts, they also have a scientific, rigorous attitude. For example, they might pull out a form and, like a bookworm, check the just-finished visit, comparing against scientific logic to find problems. Then they pull out another form to meticulously plan the next steps, painstakingly gathering information, analyzing data, and seeking evidence. To them, sales is solving a math problem. Their methods aren't complex, but they strictly execute and persistently persist. Such salespeople are extremely rare in reality; one in a thousand is an understatement.

Top Expert: Sales is integrated with their soul.

Like other industries, sales success also relates to talent.

It also relates to historical culture, personal qualities, industry experience, etc. These people aren't selling things; they guide customers forward. They have completely abandoned "self-interest" from the depths of their hearts, reaching the state of "no self."

Some might say, if there's no "self," why do sales? Sales is about returns. Yes, sales is about returns, but the key is that "returns" aren't something you can demand. On the contrary, things often come when you don't expect them, or come in greater amounts. Only by fully focusing on the customer can you achieve "no self" and ultimately gain the greatest returns.

Top experts are a state of being. Their success is often accidental, a convergence of various factors. So they are hard to find, and it's okay if you can't achieve it, because your competitors can't either.

**Returning to the Essence of Experts**

Some people think, forget the theory, a flailing fist can beat a master. Practicality is king; theory can't feed you.

I've always believed that those who shout "practicality is king" usually mean "simplicity is king." They spend their days searching for secret tricks on forums, hoping to win with one move, but they put in no less effort and gain nothing. In fact, secret tricks don't exist because they don't follow logic. If you use a trick and I use a trick, who wins?

The essence of sales is "change." There's never the same game twice, and no two deals are exactly alike. So don't rely on so-called tricks. Even if they work, they only work in specific contexts. When the context changes, the tricks must change. To become an expert, you need to practice diligently.

First, you can provide value to the customer.

Customers don't buy products; they buy solutions to problems and the benefits that come with them. In sales, value isn't just from the product or service; often it's from the salesperson, or even the sales process. In large project sales, the salesperson is a major source of differentiation and advantage, not the product itself. So the salesperson should be a primary carrier of value; otherwise, sales loses its reason to exist.

But in B2B sales, to provide value, salespeople need two conditions: a deep understanding of the customer's business and an understanding of the customer's commercial essence.

Customer business refers to knowledge of the customer's industry. For example, if your customer is a bank, you need to understand credit, bills, and even supply chain finance, even if you're just selling printers. Additionally, you need to know how bank employees use your product, like printing frequency, speed requirements, paper handling, etc. Together, these constitute customer business knowledge.

Commercial essence means how the customer makes money, their business model, strategy, and core competitiveness. These are big questions, but they are closely related to your product.

Because sales is about solving customer problems, if you don't understand the customer's business, you can't find problems; if you don't understand the commercial essence, how can you design valuable solutions?

This sounds like what a consultant does. Indeed, every good salesperson is a good consultant. Only by understanding these can you truly find the customer's problems and create value. Otherwise, all you can do is pay for their meal.

Usually, the problems customers discover are just the tip of the iceberg, but experts can see the whole iceberg because they understand the customer's business better than the customer. Also, because they understand the commercial essence, they can propose much better solutions than competitors. Finding more problems and offering better solutions naturally highlights the value you provide.

Second, you must make the customer aware that you have indeed provided value.

This seems simple, but it's actually very complex. First, the customer may not be willing to listen (because there's no trust); second, the customer may not acknowledge the problems you raise (because you lack needs-discovery skills); third, the customer may not think your solution is good (because your persuasion or presentation skills are lacking); finally, the customer may not acknowledge the value you claim (because they think it's your imagination).

These abilities are collectively called sales execution capabilities. They are like a telescope; the customer needs to see the value through it, otherwise they can only see what's right in front of them. This capability isn't a few simple tricks but a systematic methodology, including your sales philosophy, sales process, sales methodology, and project and customer management methods. It covers sales techniques from customer discovery to customer management.

The market is full of such sales techniques—on Tianya, Weibo, airport bookstores, and training classrooms. However, finding the truly "right" technique isn't easy. It must meet several conditions. First, it must be designed according to the customer's purchasing process and behavior, not just accumulated experience. You should sell the way customers buy. Second, it must be a systematic thought with logic, process, methods, and tools, not fragmented tips. Third, it must be ethical, or at least not unethical. Ethics in sales means win-win; any technique without win-win is deception.

Third, you must make every purchasing role in the customer's organization believe you have provided value.

As mentioned, sales is like consulting, but not the same. Sales is more tiring than consulting because their goals differ. Consultants provide organizational benefits through their expertise, but sales aims to facilitate the customer's purchase decision, which involves more than just organizational benefits.

Consultants work on "things," while salespeople work on "people." So salespeople must provide one or more customer roles with reasons to support you, and do so for everyone who influences the decision, to satisfy their buying motives.

The value in sales includes the value gained by the customer's organization and the value gained by each individual in the organization; both are indispensable. If you fail to provide value to even one person, your deal is in danger. This capability is called sales strategy capability. It includes judging people, competitors, project position, customer response patterns, and formulating action plans. The core is judging and satisfying the customer's personal interests. These interact and influence each other, collectively building a sales analysis model for large projects.

True progress is often harder than a snake shedding its skin; it's a painful process. The more an expert holds, the harder it is to let go, and thus the less likely they are to get something better. So to become a true expert, the most important thing is the courage to deny yourself.

When you can use something—whether it's a cognition, strategy, system, or anything else—with ease, and when you feel proud of it, you must force yourself to question it. Find faults, pick holes, and scold yourself. If you do this, you'll find that many things not only aren't lost but are elevated. Your questioning and denial become the best catalyst.

Looking back at the initial case, we can see why the veteran lost. He made a fatal mistake: he used guesses instead of real information, and then reasoned with guessed information to guess the customer's motives. The newcomer didn't guess; he couldn't guess. He did everything to find intelligence, evidence, and insiders. If it took an hour to close a deal, he spent 59 minutes on these tasks, and the rest was done in a minute. This aligns with the rules of sales, so he succeeded.

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