How do you Perceive a Salesperson?
Patient: Doctor, you have to help me stop talking to myself.
Doctor: Why is that?
Patient: I’m a salesman, and I keep selling myself things I don’t want.
Maybe you giggled, maybe you didn’t. The thing is, we all know “salespeople” jokes. Because we’ve all had that one salesperson (or a multitude of them) who ruined it for all the others that came after. You know, the one that defined every characteristic of a “bad” salesperson. Some barely said hello, while others seemed disinterested. Few asked any questions and may have rushed to make a recommendation and maybe even hastily positioned something you didn’t ask for. They clerked the sale instead of creating a meaningful customer experience. Never made eye contact, never listened, never really got to know me, the customer, and so on.
Sales is…
A simple definition of sales is the exchange of money for goods or services. Salespeople (or sales reps, sales consultants, sales professionals, etc.) are the people who perform the tasks necessary to necessitate that exchange. Normally, these people follow specific behaviors to help customers buy those goods and services.
I always find a little tension here. “Sales,” for me, represents the outcome of the exchange. Think about the word. It’s a noun, a thing. Sales…how many sales did we have today? “Sell” or “Selling” represents what we do to create “sales”. This is a verb implying action. Which of the two do we place our energy, effort, and enthusiasm? The analysis of outcome or analysis of behavior?
When I am with salespeople, I am typically less interested in their sales and more interested in their capability to sell.
Are you a wireless retail company that happens to make sales or are you a selling organization that happens to carry wireless retail products and services?
Given the context of the Wireless Retail Industry, in almost every selling skills workshop I have delivered, I pose this question. Consider how you would answer.
Let’s be real, we want sales, and a lot of them. This is a constant goal and aspiration. We want maximum achievement, and we measure it in every way possible. And given all of that attention, sales will always ever be a result of behavioral choice.
So back to the question, if we are a selling organization that happens to carry wireless stuff, the implication is that we focus on selling and selling well, and it doesn’t matter what stuff we have to sell. It implies because we are really good at the art and science of selling, we can sell anything. We have mastered the selling process and all the behaviors that cultivate desired sales outcomes. Does that mean we meet and exceed every sales target? No. It suggests by focusing on the selling behavior, we are in a more likely place to meet or exceed a sales target.
There are only five steps in selling.
I’ve gone through a litany of selling skills course and I’ve delivered just as many. Some others wrote, some I wrote. Regardless of who wrote them, what they’re called, or where they go or how you deliver them, they are “Hi.”, “What do you want?” “How about this.”, “Buy it.”, and “Thanks.” I understand I have oversimplified them. Said another way, they are GREET, DISCOVER, BUILD, CLOSE, and THANK.
The premise being, if I know these well and why they exist in that order. Providing that I learn all the behaviors associated with each step and practice them often. If I know to what extent I need to deliver them and receive subsequent coaching and correction after delivery. Presuming I care about the interaction and put all my efforts into a professional point of view…if I do all these things, then, I believe, the sales will follow.
I’ll take a step farther. If we do all of that well and believe that what a salesperson does matters, we aren’t just selling, we begin creating relationships with our customers. We establish value for customers. We pivot from salespeople selling stuff to customers buying stuff. This is where it gets really interesting. More about this in part two next month.
I’ll leave you with this. I learned a long, long time ago that the highest paying job in the world is “sales”. It’s also one of the lowest paying jobs in the world. What is the difference? I contend it comes down to the art and science of selling. It’s all about mindset and outlook driving behavioral choice.
As an individual or sales team, consider the following questions and how your answers have the possibility to shape all the next steps.
- Define Sales…what does this mean?
- Define Sell or Selling…what does this mean?
- In your store and/or market, how are salespeople perceived?
- Think of a bad salesperson or experience, what happened?
- Think of a good salesperson or experience, what happened?
- Would you buy stuff from you? Why or why not?
- If tomorrow all the product you currently sell goes away and is replaced by completely new stuff, could you sell it?
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