Market Perception of Sales-People

How do Customers perceive Salesmen in general?

We have come across quite a few good sales-people who are efficient and effective. They consistently achieve targets and are respected by their clients. However, the majority of sales-people do not meet the above criteria. What do clients feel about sales-people who call on them? In a survey carried out with various customers, the following observations were made about sales-people:

1. They talk too much.

2. They do not listen to our needs.

3. They display a ‘know-it-all’ attitude.

4. They try to sell without understanding our specific requirements.

5. They do not show much concern about our business process.

6. We are bombarded with unnecessary technical jargon.

7. Their follow-up is based only on their needs and not on ours.

8. They are desperate to close the order.

9. Very rarely do they follow up after collecting the order.

10. They become defensive when pointed out about product and service deficiencies.

Excerpt from Contextual Selling®: A New Sales Paradigm for the 21st Century.
Author – Rajan Parulekar

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Selling – A science or an Art?

There are two schools of thought about the profession of selling – whether it is a science which can be taught or an art that can be learned through experience?

In a survey of 173 marketing executives, 46 per cent perceived selling as an art, 8 per cent as science and 46 per cent perceived selling as an art evolving into science.

You may have come across some dynamic and charismatic salespeople and to some extent, advertising professionals, who perform consistently well and thus, get excellent results. Such people have tremendous enthusiasm and the gift of the gab. They feel selling can be learnt only on field by making sales calls. The more calls you make, the better is your experience and thus your success rate. While speaking to some of the top performers, I was told that success comes through experience and experience comes through failures. So, stated otherwise, one has to make lot of calls and face challenging situations like facing angry and egoistic customers who make you wait endlessly. It is also about closing a good number of orders, losing some, and while doing so have an inner resolve that one has to succeed come what may.

Essentially this school of thought, which says that learning ‘selling’ through years of “slogging in the field” rather than a systematic and fundamental body of knowledge can be dangerous as John Howard’s dictum “ Experiential Knowledge can be unreliable.” Selling as a science looks at selling from the perspective of human psychology and may also include Hertzberg and Abraham Maslow’s theory of motivation. Some of the conceptual frameworks in selling are: AIDA theory, which stands for getting the Attention of the customer, creating Interest, arouse Desire and enable him to take an Action. The other one is tell them what you want to tell them (Introduction), tell them (the Sales Pitch) and tell what you have told them (Summary and Order Closing).

Excerpt from Contextual Selling®: A New Sales Paradigm for the 21st Century.
Author – Rajan Parulekar

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Why Canned Presentations Fail

Is there any merit in salesmen making canned presentations? During a pre-training briefing, many clients insist that a standard script be taught, for use verbatim for their sales calls. Their justification for this is “it impresses the customer”.

The following are their reasons for still sticking to this outdated selling style.

  • Management pressure: It is assumed that the boss knows best. The sales team has been told that there is only one way of talking and so be it.
  • Low self-esteem of salesmen
  • Locus of control: The salesman feels that the customer is all too powerful, due to low self-esteem of the former. Under such a notion, he presumes that a canned speech may rescue him. This is termed as ‘premature cognitive commitment’ (PCC) by Ellen Langer, a renowned psychologist at Harvard Business School. A belief in PCC makes the salesman focus more on the outcome (I want to get this order) rather than the process (Can I understand the concerns he has about me , my organization and the products before selling?). This focus on the outcome leads to fatigue and exhaustion not only to the seller but also to the buyer because it is a mindless activity. To keep the customer engaged, he should move from mindlessness to mindfulness. It is assumed that practice makes perfect, but the truth is otherwise. It makes one mindless because whenever you perform an activity in a routine way, it moves out of your consciousness and becomes dull and boring.

Canned speeches fail for the following reasons:

  • The market has changed from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. Today’s customers have more choices than earlier.
  • Customers anticipate what the salesman would say, thus making the conversation monotonous and boring.
  • Each customer is unique in terms of attitude, behaviour, culture, etc. Also, the same customer may display a different type of behaviour at different times. In the morning he may have the energy to listen to the salesperson, but in the subsequent post-lunch meeting he may not have the same energy level.
  • The attention span of customers has come down thanks to computers, mobiles, hand-helds, PDAs. A familiar script produces boredom and irritation in customers.

Excerpts taken from Contextual Selling® – A new sales paradigm for the 21st century (Author – Rajan Parulekar)

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