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The term selling has worn out its welcome. It's like cassette tapes, beepers, and mullets... times have changed. The status quo view of selling stems from your prototypical fast talking, hair greased back, Miami Vice suit wearing, chest hair showing, circa nineteen eighties door to door steak knives salesman. Think about that for a second. When you think about what sales is and what someone selling something is, this guy is the poster child of your thoughts.

Now take that guy and make the setting around him the conference room at IBM in front of the hiring manager for North American Sales. How is that going to work out in the end? Now enter the cool, calm, collective, and well spoken major account representative whose answers are well thought out and innovative. Who do you think will be back for the second interview?

People buy from people, but not until they are ready to buy. People know when they are being sold and just want to have a conversation. They want to deal with a human being, not a tape recording. This is why the composed and controlled candidate will have the best chance at getting the job. Showing up in a customer's office unannounced daily or calling them three times during lunch is not going to sway their decision. It is only going to drive them to the person who represents their company through the professionalism and integrity they display in their approach to assisting the prospect fulfill a need or a want. The result has been organizations are now attempting to distance themselves from going to market with sales representatives and are now embracing the consultative type approach and titles such as consultant, account representative, account manager, and account executive. The goal is to be an informed and well versed point of reference for the customer in the decision making process. The one who informs the customer that they are running efficiently and would be best suited to revisit the project in 6 months is going to gain more trust and business in the long run than the competitor who urges the customer to purchase now without taking the companies situation as a whole into consideration just to obtain a sale.

You can spin, prod, and talk till your oxygen levels become a concern. But if there is not a cost efficient need, then there is no sale. Showing a customer numerical facts to justify a purchase is not selling. It is providing factual data. This is why sales is said to be a numbers game. It takes x amount of calls to find y people looking to buy. If selling was having a good sales pitch, quotas would be fulfilled within the first ten calls of the month.

Representatives tend to over sell or focus on aspects of their product that are not of importance to specific prospects. Consumers know what they want and how they want it. The product could have coffee making fairies that appear with the snap of the fingers. If that customer does not want coffee, then the fairies are irrelevant. And if they do want coffee making fairies, then there is a good chance your competitors provide coffee making fairies as well. They wouldn't be a competitor if they didn't.

So how do you differentiate yourself? It's not the product and it's not the amount of words you can spit out. It is done by recommending and presenting the right product or the proper service which satisfies criterion the customer has determined will have the most impact across the entire scope of their business.

Learn more about this author, John Dinicola.
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