The Hostile Business to Business Sales Person

January 11, 2012 by Scott Olsen

You may not want your friends to demonstrate hostile behavior, but professionals who are hostile by nature are more likely to succeed in business sales and high level leadership in the long run than those without it.

Why?

…because their hostile nature tends to fuel their fire day in and day out. So what does this mean to possess a hostile behavior trait? Here’s an example, if the hostile person were to leave their wallet at a restaurant, when they get home and realize this, their likely first thought would be, “I left my wallet at the restaurant. Someone has stole it and spent all of the money. I need to cancel my credit cards immediately.” The opposite of the hostile person in this sense is the tolerant person. If the tolerant person leaves their wallet at a restaurant, when they get home they might think something like, “I left my wallet at the restuarant. I’m sure someone turned it in for me. I’ll just call up the restaurant, ask them to hold it for me and when I swing by tomorrow to pick it up, I might make a best new friend in the process.” This may be an exaggeration, but the point is the tolerant person has a buoyant view of the world, “it’s all going to work out.” On the other hand the hostile person has a view that “the world is a nasty place. It’s a jungle out there. If I don’t get up and fight my way through it everyday, it will eat me up alive.” The hostile person is more likely to wake up each day with a fire in their belling thinking, “what do I have to do today to make something good happen.”

Harness the Hostility

Given the choice between the aggressive sales person and the passive sales person for their team of “hunters,” sales managers know they need the aggressive ones to really make things happen in opening up new territories. The sales manager knows there ’s a risk associated with the hostile sales person, but it’s well worth it if sales person can harness this trait. Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson’s new book, The Challenger Sale, describes the most effective sales people as assertive, not aggressive, but assertive. Dixon and Adamson go on to compare the assertive and aggressive sales person in the following ways:

Assertive

  • Directly pursues goals in a constructive way
  • Defends own personal boundaries
  • Uses direct language

Aggressive

  • Pursues goals at the expense of  professionalism
  • Attacks others’ personal boundaries
  • Uses antagonistic language

In summary, the hostile trait tends to fuel the fire of the business sales person and high level leader, but it’s only when they transmute this behavior from aggressiveness to assertiveness that they become most effective. For those who want to become more assertive and deal better with aggressive counterparts, I suggest participating in our Effective Negotiation Skills course.

→ No CommentsCategories: Differentiating You, Executive Selling, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Selling in Difficult Times, Uncategorized, professional development, selling

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