Are You A Heart Based Salesperson ?

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Would you like dealing with a person or an organization where your interest is to deal in Equities and they turn a blind eye to your needs and insist on offering you Fixed Income products?

Or, let’s say you are looking for a mode of investment for a period of six months without loss of principal and returns no less than 5% p.a. Would you like to be serviced by a sales person who is fixated about selling you something for 12 months?

Does pricey always mean value? The same dynamics of value creation can be extended to a sales role in any industry. In every sale, in every field if you have no real intention of creating value for your customer, then you aren’t selling. In selling and marketing you need to lead with your value and not your rates. You need to make it meaningful in that you create a better outcome for your clients.

There’s no free lunch in this world, thus there is a price for everything you want. Just make sure the price you pay is worth the value you get.

Typically a sales person is greeted with disdain. I know many people who picturize a sales person as a used-car salesmen, someone who is desperate to make a sale, harasses you endlessly, makes promises but rarely delivers and wants to con you into buying something and yet when it comes to after sales service the person is Missing In Action.

The most essential skill that each of us need to have, no matter what we are engaged in, is Selling or Marketing yourself. The one skill that everyone needs and yet no college really teaches is ‘selling’.

You are the CEO of your personal brand and unless you market yourself and develop the soft skills, no one will know about you. No matter what you do or are, you are engaged in selling. Selling your idea, your brand, your service, your product, or various aspects of your business.

I have never understood why people consider someone to be a good sales person if they have managed to make a sale along the lines of “Selling Ice To Eskimos”.  Are you wondering why ?

Ask yourself these questions

Have You 

• Bothered to find out what the client needs?
• Understood what your customer needs and are you and your product or services offered by your firm truly able to fulfill those needs?
• Bothered to listen to the customer
• Paused from your never-ending sales pitch and given the customer a chance to speak and express what they want?
• Understood your product, and the market in which you operate in?
• Determined how well do you know your business and how good is your business acumen
• Looked at beyond the obvious?
• Looked at the long-term standing of what you are offering ? Do you think it will stand the test of time?

Are You

• Willing to take risks and have you evaluated the risks and returns ?
• Convinced about what you are selling – an idea, a service, a product, an offering. Would you buy it from yourself if you were selling it to yourself ?

Do You 

• Know your skills and are you willing to improvise ? Are you willing to seek the information you don’t know and help a client
• Stick with your client just to make a trade or transaction or is it a long-term relationship?
• Consider your client to be a long-term partner? Do you value the relationship with your client even when they face tough business challenges?
• Take the time to have a conversation with your customer, to understand their needs and wants?
• Ask questions to your client when you don’t understand some aspects of his business?
• Dance between being persistent yet prudent and in fulfilling the client needs?

How many of you as a sales person have gone on auto pilot based on your past experiences? Are you engaging from your heart ?

Selling is about understanding your customer, listening, and treating the customer in a manner that they feel wanted, cared and find it a pleasure dealing with you.