Changing the Lens on Sales

Does the notion of facing the quintessential pushy used car salesman make you recoil? And it should! The sales profession often has a bad reputation because of unsavory sales behavior.

When I first started doing sales in my career, I knew I did not want to become the type of sales person I didn't like to deal with. I thought carefully about what I was trying to accomplish as a sales person, then typed up and printed out a note which I stuck on my monitor that read:

"Sales is a greatly needed service that YOU'RE providing which starts with understanding the person's point of view, needs, aspirations, risks and fears. Give that person a great sales experience that educates them and helps them understand their options in order to make an informed decision confidently."

In my very first full-time job after graduating from college, I was hired as the first and only marketing person at an engineering firm. It was a company with a new CEO (an engineer), to whom I reported. It was my first experience where the culture of the company was where the sales person's role (they were all engineers) were highly coveted roles at the company. Before then, I had the notion that nobody wanted to do sales as a job; it seems shady and somehow "dirty". The turning point was when I witnessed again and again, how the sales engineers were able to provide genuinely valuable, often highly technical information to their prospects in ways that really helped solve problems -- even problems they didn't think they had -- while commanding the respect of their prospects. At this firm, customers loved the sales engineers who called on them!

Since I was a newbie in the working world as a one-woman-show in the marketing department, I had to learn to do everything single task in the department from setting up the company's first marketing budget to designing brochures to be printed. I had no knowledge of the printing world, and a sales person completely educated me about it and managed not to make me feel like a dunce in the process. I was truly grateful for the sales person's continued guidance and education in a space that I was unfamiliar. I still remember this sales person's name even though I haven't spoken to him since I left the firm many moons ago. Since that experience, I have learned that when done right, a sales experience can in fact be a positive, collaborative and productive one -- one where prospects see clear benefits and not shun away from.

For those people going into sales or are in the field of sales, while quotas and goals can sometimes steal the spotlight, it helps to refocus on understanding the prospects' needs so that you can help solve their problems...the rest will fall in line as long as you work smart by thoroughly understanding your audience and becoming a source of knowledge, build rapport, ask the right questions, communicate effectively, and are highly disciplined with your process and time management.

For those who are on the receiving end of sales calls, you may dread those calls and find yourself doing everything you can to evade them. However, you might want to consider changing your lens on how you view these sales calls; they are free opportunities to engage in conversation to educate yourself where there are no dumb questions, learn, and make informed decisions. There are tons of great products and services out there that can help you individually or your company out-do your competition. It is a good idea to explore these regularly and seize these sales calls as opportunities to learn. After all, you're not obligated to buy. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that because there's never an obligation to purchase, it's a really good idea to canvas the marketplace to keep abreast of what's available to you as a resource. If you're not doing it, consider the consequence if your competitors are actively doing so and availing themselves to innovative solutions to advance their businesses. 

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different results." -- Albert Einstein 

If you're trying to grow your firm and have no new ideas or have not implemented any new activities, it would be difficult to expect growth to occur all on its own. Participating in a conversation with a sales person helps spark ideas that can prompt action that leads to growth. When you re-jigger your combination of people, process and technology, you could propel yourself or your business forward in ways you might not have imagined. This is especially the case with new technology or a new way of doing things. This is because when something is new, it's easy to be dismissive or worry that no one else is embracing it yet. But if you wait till everyone is doing it, instead of gaining an advantage over your competition that differentiates your company, you are simply playing catch up as adopting that new thing would have become simply table stakes. The interesting reality is that often times, the path to learning about new technology and processes starts with taking the call from a sales person and keeping an open mind.