I remember my first interview for a sales position. The manager interviewing me said he was looking for people who were born to be salespeople. He was willing to give me a shot to see "if I had what it takes." While I was offered the position, I was nervous wondering if I had what it takes to be a good seller.
Over the years, I learned that there are really just 2 types of sellers. The first is an "eagle" seller. This type has an innate ability to connect with a buyer and follow intuition to move with the buyer through their buying process while influencing them to buy their offering. In a sales organization, eagle sellers represent about 20% of the team. The second type of seller, the other 80%, are journey people. With a good process, a journey person can outperform an eagle seller. Why? Because they have created a process of best practices and skills and adjust to the client, but rarely deviate from.
Whether you tend toward an eagle, or a journey person, these best practices can be incorporated into your selling process to increase the effectiveness of your conversations with all types of decision makers.