Are we sales people or are we something else?
Steve Glaister
White Label Hosted Unified Comms - Giver of Free Advice (asked for or not ??). 3 decades of channel. MSP/MPS friendly, Proud to be in a successful Employee Owned Business. *does not pitch on invite
Deep question for a Monday morning. However how we see ourselves is very important as it is how others see ourselves.
I have been in sales all my life and I class myself as a sales person. This occasionally goes against me.
I have heard other names for what we do :- brand ambassador is the newest one as salesmen do have a negative connotations. A salesman will try to sell to you, that is their role, their function, their mission and is how they are remunerated.
A Business Development Manager will develop their or your business. An Account Manager will manage your account. All doing the same job. Although I did have an argument with an account manager once who told me his job was not to sell. His accounts did not grow and he did not stay with the business.
I think we are more than that, we offer confidence and trust. We are relationship managers, even more so when you work in Channel. We grow faith, trust and confidence. It becomes a 2 way relationship where we need to be able to trust one another, we will help you grow, we will not harm your business and we will become a resource that you can call upon whenever you need us. In return we expect that you will place business with us. We will look after you and in turn we hope that you will look after us.
So are you a sales person? are you a business development manager? or are you a relationship manager?
Who would you prefer to deal with?
Great insights. Thanks for sharing.
Owner / Managing Broker at Lakes Realty Group
8 年Ultimately I sell houses. But my job is to build trust and provide information so my clients can make the best possible decision. I've been in sales a long time and I've never felt ashamed to say so.
Transformational Sales Leader
8 年Lee...this is a specific topic in every class I've led, every sales group I've led as well. I'm proud to be a sales person and to all the Trusted Advisors of Business Development & Account Management ("TABDAM" if you will...) all your prospects and customers know you are there to sell them something - deliver timely value and they won't care what you call yourself. Very few people can sustain a career in sales over the long term. If you have, be proud of what you've accomplished!
Gigabyte Guru - The term Guru originates from Sanskrit, where "gu" means darkness or ignorance, and "ru" means remover. Thus, a Guru is someone who dispels ignorance and leads others to enlightenment or deeper knowledge.
8 年And here's the proof of the matter... have you ever tried selling something to someone who knows more about it than you do? Unless you are the ONLY supplier available you will never make the sale if you have not managed to tell him something he didn't already know. When I 'Educate' people, I search for raised eyebrows and "Oh, I didn't know that" rather than YES'S. Makes for a much stronger relationship... As Andrew Hornby states below... once you have managed to educate them about something new, they begin to trust you and thats the first step... When the client starts to finish sentences for you then you are onto a loser unless you are talking about a joint interest. They are already saying "this guy cannot teach me anything I don't already know!" and they are trying to hurry the meeting up... Think about it... engage your audience with a wealth of new knowledge ad you'll have them forever.
Gigabyte Guru - The term Guru originates from Sanskrit, where "gu" means darkness or ignorance, and "ru" means remover. Thus, a Guru is someone who dispels ignorance and leads others to enlightenment or deeper knowledge.
8 年I would suggest that personally, we are "educators" (theres a new one for you!)... However, you spin it, whatever you want to call it, our primary role is to educate someone about the advantages and disadvantages of x,y,z!. We are put into that position because we can communicate a vision effectively and we know more about a product or service than they do. Whether that vision is one of an improved bottom line, or improved efficiency etc is irrelevant...we are effectively educating the client as to what his/her options are and to hopefully guide him into making an informed decision. Thats the nuts and bolts of it. Everything else is just waffle in my opinion.