One thing that John DeRosa likes to preach is accountability.

"I mean, accountability is important, pretty much in every aspect of life," the director of contractor training for SRS Distribution said during an exclusive interview with Roofing & Exteriors. "We need to take complete ownership of our outcomes."

DeRosa advises salespeople not to look for reasons to excuse poor performance.

Rather, "You want to focus more on the results and the steps that you need to do to drive those results," he said.  

Salespeople are able to grow not just by celebrating success—but also by accepting defeat.

"You should also be willing to say I lost the sale because maybe I didn't do something right," DeRosa noted. "That's where our growth comes from. That's the importance of accountability."

Part of being a good salesperson is dispelling any notions regarding salespersons—i.e. the dishonest used car salesperson stereotype.

"Nobody wants to be seen as a liar or pushy," DeRosa said. "So what happens is when people go into sales, they're trying desperately to hold true to their values. And then we're put into a sales situation, and our image of sales actually contradicts those values and our values are always going to win."

DeRosa also spoke about the benefit of SRS providing training programs to its contractor network. 

"We really do think it's necessary for us to partner with customers, if there's anything that we can do to help our customers win, to succeed to grow," he noted.