The Enigma called ‘Sales’
“Everyone is a Salesperson” — cliched it may sound, but so true it is. It’s just that some people push the lines a little further, realize it’s a craft they are good at, and more importantly enjoy the end result of getting someone’s buy-in. It’s amazing how Salepeople across industry are people with similar traits and behavior. Unlike other professionals — Doctors must have read similar books, CA’s must be using similar Accounting tools, IT professionals must be using common languages and software. What about the Sale-oos?
We typically observe the following in most Sales professionals — whether it’s New Delhi or New York:-
1) They have been selling since School days- they will always give you multiple reasons why you should do something, go to a particular restaurant, watch the movie they say, follow their favorite player (Federer & Messi in my case). PS:- I don’t mean to say you should drop from school and start selling :-P
2) They are able to adjust patience-level like nobody else. It’s a great quandary, isn’t it? Whether Salespeople need to be patient or impatient? You need them to be patient in follow-up and customer’s fury, and impatient when it comes to finding opportunities, closing deals, internal escalations and processing.
3) Most great Salespeople are able to win business through sheer confidence. People buy from people they like, and people like interesting characters. I have seen Sales calls where hardly any business was discussed, and the customer was sold. Make them believe you are the best Salesman in the Company. Do not be afraid to tear down competition. Whatever happens- the performance on stage is as important as the reality backstage.
4) Building castles in air. Most customers do an intelligent analysis before purchasing. But a lot of times, customers will still buy from you while option B would have been better. This happens when champion Salespeople defeat intelligence with hope. While I do not endorse this — but that, my friend, is the order of the day (it’s almost a zero sum game, because the Customer does it to his customer as well).
5) Insanely responsive. Great Salespeople are able to seize the moment & capitalize on customer issues/objections and over-manage to build testimonials out of them. Such incidents will help in creating loyal customers besides adding to your Selling armor. It’s the Salesperson who becomes the customer’s advocate inside the Company who takes the cake. These are champion Salespersons who produce their Sales-best even with internal stakeholders like Operations, Credit, Marketing to ensure Customer satisfaction and loyalty.
These and many other traits, skills, and idiosyncrasies form a language of the Sales fraternity. A universal language that is spoken by the rainmakers — it’s about grit, hunger, perseverance. But more importantly, the Salesperson out there is driven by his quest for bringing money to the table- not just for himself but also for his folks back in office.
