NO SALESPERSON ARE ALLOWED
I walk by this door every day (at least thrice), and I read it aloud every time I walk past it. "NO SALESPERSON ARE ALLOWED". Somedays I laugh, some days I get mad, some days I cringe.
It also made me wonder what made this company go to the extent of posting this out on the door.
Do they see the salesperson as a liar, deceiving, self-absorbed, implacable person?
Whatever the title be - Business strategist, counsellor, visionary - the minute they realise you are associated with sales, they hate you. And we can't entirely blame them for this judgment. Years of deceptive selling, pushing something to the client that they don't want, wrong implementations of 'Always Be Closing' made this a tainted relationship between the buyer and seller.
Buyers are afraid that they may be fooled, will have to pay a higher price, or spend on something that they don't want. Seller, on the other hand, wants to hit the sales target, keep getting clients, and get salary hikes and promotions. This leads to the broken principle of 'only sell something to someone with money'. And buyers see as 'sellers are strangers who will call and ask me for my money'.
Have our years of slips caused irreversible damage to the mindset of buyers?
I'm uber-confident we can make this tangled buyer-seller relationship right.
- Celebrities have Paparazzi; Business people have a troop of Salespeople:
Privacy is about respecting individuals. If a person has a reasonable desire not to talk or reply to us, it is disrespectful to ignore that person's wishes without a compelling reason to do so.
Pressing the other person irrespective of what they say implies: I don't care about what you say, I only care about what I have to say.
2. We ain't Mark Anthony:
No. We are not dealing with the death of Julius Caesar. There is no need for us to make a U-turn speech. We don't have to go a long way out of line, make the client forget the question for which they wanted an answer but end it justifiably. Let's make it as precise as possible. In an old job, I was told - every word a salesperson talks is worth a dollar. Use it wisely.
3. I, Me, Myself:
How well does it feel to sit on the couch and have a cheeseburger, french fries and a soda every day for a meal? Tasty? How much does it have an impact on our health?
We are doing the same 'Cheesy Fried Stuff' with our clients. It could feel excellent to talk about our company and ourselves to the client. But it's suffocating on the other end, ever cared about what they have to deal with?
We are there to get to know more about the client and not solely to make the client understand who we are. Let's listen and genuinely try to evaluate if we can be purposeful to their business. Otherwise, let's gracefully call it off and walk away. There could be another company with the right solution for the client.
Let's listen, be honest, help clients scale-up, and in turn, naturally, so will we.
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