TODAY'S SALESPERSON: Plague Or Professional

Do you remember the Old Testament story in Exodus when Pharaoh would not free the Israelites? To punish the Egyptians, God sent plagues and pestilence.

First the waters turned to blood. Then there was an invasion of frogs followed by mosquitoes. Moses and Aaron told Pharaoh the plagues would stop if he would let the Israelites go. But Pharaoh refused, so the Lord sent swarms of flies, and then caused all the Egyptians' livestock to die. Pharaoh's heart was still hardened so the next pestilence was boils; this was followed by hail and then locusts. Still Pharaoh refused, so the Lord caused total darkness to envelop the land. The sun went out. Pharaoh still remained adamant so the tenth plague was the death of the Egyptians' first-born sons.

Most accounts of these plagues in the story of Exodus end there. But word of mouth accounts maintain that even after all this pestilence Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go, so the Lord sent a plague that was truly the last straw: Salespeople! Wave after wave of them. They sold vacuum cleaners, encyclopedias, cookware, and vitamins. Why, the Lord even sent children selling cookies, candy, raffle tickets, and magazine subscriptions!

That did it. Pharaoh had had enough, so he let the Israelites go into the desert to worship. Ever since, salespeople continue to try to perform miracles in the modern world and continue to be misperceived as to their true function.

When you hear the word "salesperson", what descriptive words come to mind? Do you think of words like "courteous", "knowledgeable", "professional", "helpful"? Or are you apt to think of "aggressive", "pushy", "persistent", "pestering"?

The truth of the matter is that even other salespeople don't like the salespeople -- the image of the Willy Loman (Death of a Salesman) or Herb Tarlick (of the TV show, WKRP in Cincinnati) or the used car dealer on Main Street is unfortunately omnipresent in our society.

When I was a Marketing Professor I'd often ask the students in my Professional Selling class, "How many of you would like to go into a profession that allows you to be your own boss, help others in significant ways, have an open ceiling on your income, work your own hours and contribute to the value of a free-enterprise economy?" Invariably everyone in the room raised a hand, sometimes BOTH hands. When I then asked, "How many of you plan to go into sales as a career?" all the hands disappeared and it seemed that people tried to hide. Yet the reality is that many of those students entered sales as a profession shortly after graduation.

Several factors explain the bad rap that salespeople get. One is that salespeople represent a giant segment of our economy and in some form or another, we deal with salespeople virtually every day of our lives -- from the insurance agent to the mechanic to the travel agent to the department store clerk.

The fact that sales is so pervasive in all strata of society also helps explain why salespeople get such a bad rap. There are so MANY of them. You encounter them much more frequently than you do other professionals; physicians, for instance. And just as with other professionals, like the quack doctor or the crooked lawyer, you may interact with a Herb Tarlick or Willy Loman. Yet you don't condemn ALL doctors and lawyers or judge them all according to a few negative experiences, do you? It stands to reason not to condemn all salespeople because of a Herb Tarlick here and there.

Another major reason that people have a bad image of salespeople is that too many of them receive inadequate or inappropriate training; or even worse, NO TRAINING at all. My introduction to sales is a classic example of this approach. I went to a Catholic grammar school which undertook sales promotions each month as a way of generating money for school programs. I affectionately call it "the push of the month." The students sold various items to their parents, relatives and family friends. Each month it was something different -- cookies, magazines, big chocolate bars with almonds, and so on. In order to motivate the students to hustle, the school offered a prize to the top seller at each grade level, usually some religious artifact like a crucifix, statue, or hole water dispenser. Fortunately, I was from a big Italian Catholic family so every month I outsold my classmantes and every month I won the prize. To this day, my parent's bedroom is a shrine filled with the results of my early success.

The point is that I heard repeatedly that I was a BORN salesman, I could sell anything to anybody, I had the gift of gab. This was my training ground and this is what I began to believe -- that salespeople are born, not made; that you sell by telling and persuading, not by questioning, listening and problem-solving. Unfortunately, it's a myth that still persists in the profession today.

It's no wonder that sales is misperceived, disrespected and misrepresented in the media and the arts. Its history dates at least from the time of Moses and probably before. The noisy, colorful bazaars in today's Middle East are probably much the same as they were in Biblical times. I believe that sales methods can be significantly improved for a better educated and more aware group of customers.

Unfortunately, many inappropriate training sessions address only the elements of razzle-dazzle sales pitches, 101 closing techniques, or overcoming objections at all costs. This traditional approach has created the negative stereotypes that exist today. This approach is salesperson rather than customer oriented and tends to foster an "I win, you lose" attitude on the part of the seller.

Another approach to sales exists and the true sales professional knows it. The underlying ethic for the professional or Collaborative Selling approach is that it's not so much WHAT you do as HOW you do it. It's not so much the business you are in as the WAY you are in business. The professional salesperson utilizes a philosophy which guides every aspect of his or her behavior and which naturally extends into their work. The entire approach is based on "non-manipulative" techniques which create win/win situations for both buyer and seller every time, all the time. The cornerstone of this approach is the salesperson's desire to develop a long-term customer relationship rather than a one-shot sale.

The collaboritive sales approach depends on several guiding principles.

1. The sales process should be built around relationships that require openness and honesty on the part of both client and salesperson.

2. People buy services or products most often because they feel understood by the seller -- not because they were made to understand the product by an insistent salesperson.

3. People strive for the right to make their own decisions, even if they are poor decisions. If YOU solve a problem for someone, they resent the solution. If you INFLICT the solution on them they resent you even if they accept the solution.

4. If two people want to do business with each other, the details won't stop it from happening. If two people DON'T want to do business together, the details won't make it happen.

5. It's not what you do that makes you a professional. It's HOW you do it.

6. Prescription before diagnosis is malpractice. To paraphrase, presentation before information gathering is hucksterism.

The philosophy of the collaboritive sales approach requires that we change the language of selling. Both the traditional and collaborative approach to selling include four basic processes: information gathering, presentation, commitment and follow-through. However, the emphasis on these steps varies greatly in the two approaches.

Collaboritive Selling emphasizes the information gathering and follow-through stages whereas traditional sales focuses on the pitch and closing techniques. The vernacular employed by the traditional approach implies manipulation and superficiality. These include overcoming objections, the pitch, and closing. The terms used in the non-manipulative approach show concern for the customer, preparedness, cooperation and the intent to continue the relationship after the sale is completed. These are planning, meeting, studying, proposing, confirming and assuring.

The traditional approach is to grind the customer into submitting to the sale and to close, CLOSE, CLOSE! The professional, however, takes more time to study the customer's problems and needs in order to propose relevant solutions and be of real service to their clients. Is it any wonder that professional salespeople are more successful than their high-pressure peers?

How does the professional become more successful? By paying attention to the six steps in the Collaboritive Selling process.

1. Targeting - This involves calling on the right people at the right time with the right product or service. Targeting is necessary to enter the sales call with the air of confidence and knowledge that is crucial to establishing a trust bond relationship. Without targeting, you may be pursuing the wrong kind of prospect at the wrong time.

2. Contacting - The purpose here is to establish rapport with your client and to begin a business relationship. This is the time to prove your credibility and sincere desire to be of service. In developing trust with your clients, you will be able to elicit their real needs more easily.

3. Exploring - The professional is truly concerned with the customer's needs and exhaustively studies the customer's situation. This occurs by encouraging the client to become involved in the sales process. By asking open-ended questions and listening attentively, the salesperson invites the customer to provide relevant information that otherwise would remain unknown. The client is then likely to feel that the sale is a mutual agreement rather than a manipulation by the seller.

4. Collaborating- Unlike the traditional seller who gives an identical pitch to every client, the professional salesperson collaborates options and solutions with each individual client. This approach is more "know" than "show." The salesperson knows what the client's needs are and seeks to satisfy them rather than putting on a show to dazzle and win the client over.

5. Confirming - Because the professional has taken an interest in the client's needs from the beginning, very little time needs to be spent hustling the close or overcoming objections. He doesn't need to focus on the close because the entire process has been an open discussion every step of the way. The confirming of the sale becomes much more a question of "when" rather than "if."

6. Assuring - The professional salesperson believes the sale truly begins when the customer says, "Yes." The salesperson and the client has made a commitment to continue a mutually beneficial relationship. The salesperson is responsible for her customers' satisfaction and maintains her business relationship with all her clients. She never lets that relationship fade. Assuring means the salesperson becomes the quality control person -- making sure that the customer receives the proper order on the right delivery date, helping the client track results and analyzing the effectiveness of the product for the problems that led to its purchase. By assuring customer satisfaction, the professional salesperson builds a clientele that will guarantee future sales and new prospects.

The collaboritive approach guarantees that salespeople will not be regarded as a plague or pestilence, but as the professionals they really are.

ARTICLE TAGLINE FOR DR. TONY ALESSANDRA

Dr. Tony Alessandra has authored 13 books, recorded over 50 audio and video programs, and delivered over 2,000 keynote speeches since 1976. The ideas in this article, and many others, are adapted from Dr. Alessandra's book, The Sales Professional's Idea-A-Day Guide (Dartnell). If you would like more information about Dr. Alessandra's books, audio tapesets and video programs, or about Dr. Alessandra as a keynote speaker for your group, call (800) 222-4383 or visit his website at http://www.alessandra.com.

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