by Jeff Mccandless

Created on: July 30, 2008   Last Updated: November 05, 2009

As far as I can tell, salespeople fall into two distinct categories. At least in the area of overall behavior. Each group has something to learn from the other, but they rarely do. As I used to say, there are always two sides to the same coin, but we rarely turn the coin over, and if we do, we are often surprised by what we see there.

So, there are two groups, and for lack of better names, I call them Bean Counters and Painters:

Bean Counters

This group is the group that works with statistics. This is the group that actually sets up most courses about selling. This group needs lines, parameters, and lists. This is the group that defines the Twelve Habits of Highly Motivated Dedicated to Overcoming Objections and Getting the Most Referrals at your Great Aunt's Funeral group.

You are in this group if you:
a) have a desk covered with the last three years sales statistics from your company's computer, and you have added notes and cross-referenced the charts for your own amusement.
b) greet every customer with one of the seven lines you've memorized from the book " 2,000 Opening Lines For Every Occasion." (My personal favorite? " Did you see that game last night?")
c) have an autographed photograph of you standing with a sales guru of some sort, he with his arm around you and both of you posing with the "thumbs-up" gesture. You are holding his latest book in your other hand. It is called " Mastering the Masterful: How to Get the Upper Hand in the Contest of Wills We Call Selling"
d) tell jokes others have told you are funny.
e) read anything, it is non-fiction and generally starts with the phrase "How to Improve..."

Painters

This group is the group that "feels".
You are in this group if you:
a) have a desk covered with, well, stuff you don't want to lose or will organize later.
b) greet every customer with a new and original line you made up as you saw them approaching. ( my favorite? "Don't you just love it when the sun is beating down on you, and then you open the door to our store, and the cool air just wafts over you, first your face, then just everywhere?) You never use that line again, because you love being spontaneous.
c) read sales training books and "adapt them to fit my personal aura"
d) feel a connection not only to your customers but to all living creatures and, of course, the spirit world.
e) read anything, it's fantasy or romance. Maybe murder mysteries, sometimes. Occasionally, something about fruit. When the mood strikes you.

This is a parody, of course. Every one has some painter in them, everyone a little bean counter. But seriously, if you tend one way or the other (and everyone does) then it is in your best interest to recognize which way, exactly. Now, I know this for a fact: If you are good at what you do, you are proud of what you are. So, be proud to be a Bean Counter. Rejoice in your Painter-ness. But, what the heck, what say we explore the two sides of selling, and learn something from one another.

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