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How Being a Professional In Sales Will Directly Increase Sales

Written by: Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Article Overview: Is it just me or are a lot of sales professionals missing opportunities to increase sales because of their lack of professionalism? This thought occurred to me during a recent presentation at a business networking event and small business trade show exposition.

How Being a Professional In Sales Will Directly Increase Sales

Is it just me or are a lot of sales professionals missing opportunities to increase sales because of their lack of professionalism? This thought occurred to me during a recent presentation at a business networking event and small business trade show exposition.

Lack of sales professionalism is first noticed in the attire. One small business owner who has established herself as a marketer came to this event in faded blue jeans. Even though she had her trademarked orange briefcase and a matching orange scarf, her appearance did not project an image of confidence or business acumen. As I looked at her, I wondered did she realize the image that she projected and more importantly how would any potential client could feel confident in speaking with her?

Dress is not the only physical behavior associated with professionalism. At this same business networking event, one of the organizers who also has a marketing company, grabbed the microphone from one of the speakers to announce a winner of a raffle ticket. The speaker did a quick recovery, yet the business owner was totally clueless about this poor behavior.

Then later on, he stopped by my booth and decided to play with the PowerPoint program that was on a continuous loop. I had to reboot the program. Again, he was not even aware of how those around him viewed his boorish behavior.

The executive director of this business networking event did not even bother to speak with many of the vendors who had invested their marketing funds into this tradeshow. Her focus was on just a few of her friends. Sales Coaching Tip: You may wish to read more about why many formal business networking groups fail.

Another demonstration of poor professionalism is the inability to return phone calls. I check voice mails several times a day to make sure that phone calls are returned in a timely fashion. When talking with one executive, even though his voice mail states that he will call back quickly, he told me to leave messages through his administrative assistant because he never gets around to returning phone calls. Of course, my thought was why do you not change your pre-recorded voice mail and direct calls to your administrative assistant? Would that not be the more professional way to handle incoming calls?

Organizations both for profit and not for profit need sales (revenue) to keep them going. This revenue usually comes from a feeling of trust between someone in organization usually the sales professional and the external customer or client.

When the external customers senses or believe the sales professionals or executives demonstrate any behaviors suggesting a lack of professionalism, this weakens if not breaks the first link in the sales process. Sales Coaching Tip: Assess your professionalism. Are you creating a gap between you and your customers and potential customers (a.k.a. prospects)? If you want to increase sales, then you must and always be a professional no matter where you are, who you talk to and your own internal beliefs.

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Article Tags: boorish behavior, briefcase, business acumen, business networking, business trade show, continuous loop, faded blue jeans, marketing company, networking event, physical behavior, poor behavior, powerpoint program, raffle ticket, sales coaching, sales professionalism, sales professionals, small business owner, timely fashion, voice mail, voice mails



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