The end of Era of the cheat Salesperson

Those working in the sales field have likely heard the saying about the high-performance salesperson – "That guy can sell ice to penguins, she/he's a pro."

I always found this logic troubling. "Why do penguins want ice?" It's as if the saying implies that a salesperson is only good because they know how to persuade well, and not actually offer a real solving-problem. As a sales professional, this label made me uncomfortable because at the end of the workday, I am also a customer; I don't want to be deceived by someone else or buy products or services I don't need.

Currently, there is a strong trend of "Customer Centricity," meaning putting the customer at the center. Now the customer is the protagonist, not the salesperson, the brand, or the company. Through social media, the customer amplifies their voice, and there is no room for the "deceptive salesperson" anymore.

On the sales side, there is a growing awareness of this trend, and we understand that being a talker no longer works. A communicative profile is not as valuable as a salesperson with a consultative, analytical profile who is passionate about data and problem-solving.

There is a 2016 movie called "A Hologram for the King," starring Tom Hanks. The story is about an American salesman working for a technology company in telecommunications through holograms, facing the challenge of making a big sale in the Middle East.

In one of the movie's dialogues, at the company's office in the US, salesman Alan Clay (Tom Hanks) talks to his boss, arguing that he can make a big deal by offering the company's product to a nephew of the King of Arabia. The boss, concerned about the high costs of the trip and the business risk, is convinced with "the charm of the ice salesperson."

"Let me go, it's just one more sale!"

Without giving away spoilers, the course of the movie is precisely a sequence of unfortunate events because the "ice salesperson" underestimates the various variables in the negotiation stages, such as cultural, economic moments, needs and emotional factors

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Currently the sales art, it's not just about selling for the sake of selling. It's much more; it's a sales process.

SPIN, GPCT, MEDDIC, Kanban, CHAMP, BANT, ANUM, PACT are some examples of sales frameworks. These are methodologies based on constant experiments that systematically, scalably, and predictably highlight the trends of the negotiation stages from initiation to conclusion.

In the book released in 2018, "Save Yourself! The Future of Work in the Age of Automation," by Andrés Oppenheimer, he interviewed a series of futurists who claim that "salespeople are increasingly becoming consultants or specialists," individuals whose fundamental characteristic is to know more about the product than the customer and focus on problem-solving rather than just selling.

Before the pandemic, there were already surveys indicating the bankruptcy of many retail stores in the US. The physical store with the highest sales and visit volume was the Apple Store, precisely because of the company's behavioral change, which labels its salespeople as Specialists and has a much more educational approach than a salesperson. Specialists want to help within their technical capabilities, while salespeople just want to sell and meet their quotas.

But... are we going to have salespeople who don't sell then? How to sustain the business?

A long but short story, the idea of turning salespeople into qualified consultants is not new. Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin Records, started his music record stores not with experienced salespeople but with Hippies.

In the 80s, a Hippie was one of the most attuned individuals to all the novelty of art, culture, and music of the time. It was common to go to Branson's small stores and find a person in jeans and slippers welcoming the customer with the same empathy as a friend would welcome you to their home. As a result, in a few months, Richard Branson had 14 record stores in several cities in England. A satisfied customer undoubtedly repeats the experience several times

No one wants to be deceived; no one wants to be harmed. So let's stop creating "ice salespeople for penguins" and start promoting "consultants who help solve our problems through their products or services."