The Most Effective Salesperson: Part 1

The Relationship Builder



People often wonder about what personality type makes the most effective salesperson. When interviewing salespeople I often ask them what style they think would be the most successful for a salesperson. We are, of course, talking about selling ERP or business software. The majority of the people I ask this question of usually select the Relationship Builder. I am not sure if they are suffering from the used car salesperson syndrome but this is actually one of the least effective types of salespeople in selling complex applications. The first question is who you would actually build the relationship with. There are a lot of candidates in organizations today and most system decisions are now made by a committee of stakeholders. The second and more important question is whether the Relationship Builder is actually adding any value to the prospective customer, which is where these types can struggle. More on this in future posts as we work our way through the different types of salespeople.



Malcolm Roach, CA
President, Open Door Technology Inc.