THE IDEAL SELLER PERSONA

My biggest deal breaker is always based on the philosophy of consistent quality visit and a value-based relationship with customers over time.

During my days as a direct contact salesperson, I made courtesy calls after each day's work to establish extensive rapport and gain deep consumer insights in my top accounts.

During these courtesy calls, I cracked the "hard nuts": customers who would not accept my selling proposition.

As the popular adage goes, "familiarity breeds contempt". This, however, is not the case in sales.

Customers buy from people and things they are familiar with.

New product or service trends are combined with a touch of old familiar features or brand essence, providing the consumer/customer with a foundation from which to start.

Sports betting/stake is a new found love for most youth because it is bred in an old pot lottery, or "Lotto," in our local parlance. Gambling is not an option for many people, but the lottery and sports betting are two sides of the same coin that appeal to both young and old people. New and old trends coexist.

Don't take for granted the opportunity of familiar affinity to your brand or patronage of your service. A single mistrust can devastate an entire relationship.

Maintain consistency in after-sales service delivery.

The days of duping a customer or consumer by using deceptive tactics or adopting an aggressive posture are long gone.

The aggressive sales persona thrives in situations where a sale must be made by any means possible.

Glengarry Glen Ross, a 1992 film, popularised the aggressive salespersona. An aggressive sales representative is brought in to motivate real estate agents, threatening them with termination if they do not sell more property. He flips over a blackboard with the words "Always Be Closing" written on it throughout his speech. The speech backfires when salespeople use unethical tactics to meet their targets.

Customers/consumers now have a wealth of vital information at their disposal to make rational purchasing decisions and cannot be treated as a bunch of gullible fools who fall for anything.

In the not-too-distant past, a seller's knowledge superiority over a customer/consumer vanished.

Daniel Pink's book "To Sell Is Human" rightly suggests that the balance of power has shifted from caveat emptor, buyer beware, to none of caveat venditor, seller beware. If you're a buyer with the same amount of information as the seller, you're not the only one who needs to be cautious."

A seller must approach a customer with the mindset of a long-term value-based relationship and consultative posture built on trust, honesty, fairness, and?transparency.