CNN carries an excellent write up on Vivek Gupta, a sales superstar at IBM. His customer says about him "Sometimes even we are not sure if his name badge says 'Vodafone' or 'IBM.'". Some pointers from Mr.Gupta's success:
 

• Take pains to understand the customer's business as well as he does. Vivek Gupta(VG) knows of a customer issue at the same time that the MD of that company. How many salesmen can say that?
• Understand your own company's products and services well and tailor them to suit the customer. 
  VG invents new combination of products and services by analyzing IBM's vast product stack.
• Go out of the way to understand your customer's pain points.
  VG took the initiative (after getting rejected) to walk the corridors and identify pain areas ending up with a $100 M account.
• Know when to go for the kill and when to back off.
• Be nice to the customer.
  "He looks very polite. He tends to agree with whatever the customer asks. But then he gives what he has to give. That's the trick. It will not appear to the customer that he has not given."
• Enlist your backend folks in proactive discussions on what the customer can use.