Are you one of those professionals who don’t see themselves as being ‘sales people’, although the main aspect of your role is to acquire new customers and increase your market share? Well, maybe you haven’t had much time to think about that question, or you sometimes don’t feel comfortable with being a sales person. Anyway, you are busy with meetings, phone calls, product development or day-to-day business. (Mind you: all for the sake of selling). In any case, not your products or services need to change if you don’t sell enough; much less than that: don’t wish for different customers. Simply get a new attitude to selling and concentrate on your clients. Really concentrate, I mean.
The beauty of Positive Sales is that you have the pleasure of enriching your customer’s lives with whatever you have to offer. In every conversation with an existing or potential client, you have the opportunity to get to know them and their circumstances better. You build a professional friendship with them, which allows you to transcend the basic dealings of exchanging goods with money. If you do your job well, you know that you have authentically proven your moral stance of insisting on a win-win situation at the end of every transaction. You have successfully followed the rules that make a sales person with integrity: taking a real interest in your customer, support their needs, circumstances and desires by matching them with your products and services. It means that you have listened to their objections they might have had, blown away their doubts about your product and honestly responded to the disadvantages they saw in your services. You have made a sale that left both you and your client satisfied and interested in mutual future business.
Unrealistic, you say? U-Uh. Idealistic, you think? - Nope. Difficult to implement, you worry?- Only without the right attitude.
German Sales Trainer Hans-Uwe Koehler compares the qualities we need to display in a customer relationship with those in a romantic liaison. Despite the fact that this sounds like Kitsch and a cheap marketing trick, I think he has a point. He focuses simply on the right behaviors that make good relationships, no matter whom you are dealing with. He suggests confirming your affection for your customer on a regular basis, as you would do with your life partner: be genuinely friendly and open towards them in any interaction. Furthermore, relationships without mutual attention to the other person are empty and worthless. That’s why suggestion no. 2 is: show your interest in the client and do your best to maintain their interest in you and your business as well! Third, walk that extra mile for your client: f.e. call them to find out what they thought of the quality of the last delivery to make absolutely sure that they are happy. That’s “love-selling” á la Mr. Koehler.
When you think that the concept of “love-selling” is just another sales strategy: try it. Positive Sales or “love-selling” is nothing more - or less - than thinking beyond your own immediate interests, needs and sales goals. It is a visionary approach to sales that sees the client from the holistic point of view: including his worries, concerns and complaints. Bottom line is: the key to tapping into their buying power is not to close the next sale; it’s along your way to maintain a “loving” relationship with them.
Ever heard of LoveSelling Read on despite the name - To learn more about this author, visit Andrea 's Website.
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Andrea
(Visit Andrea's Website)
* Business Trainer and Coach
Since autumn 2007 I’ve been teaching
leadership seminars at the Washtenaw
Community College in Ann Arbor (MI) and as
faculty member at The LEAD Institute,
where m role is 360 degree feedback
coaching with executives. I’m certified in
AchieveGlobal training seminars for
Genuine Leadership, Professional Selling
Skills and Customer Service. Previous
client: DELL, Slovak Republic.
I'm also PhD candidate in Leadership
and Organizational Change at www.thierry
school.org.
Previous to this role I worked as Local
Business Manager for Barclays Bank in
Brighton, UK. The main components of this
role were sales, business development and
risk management. During that period I
attended numerous networking events and
held a position as chapter director for a
local networking organization.
Previous to that I was an Account
Executive for Kimberly-Clark, also in
Brighton, England. For this American
company I oversaw the Order To Cash
process of the largest German retail
group.
My interest in sales started when I worked
as Sales Assistant Manager for a medium
sized company, selling laminate and
hardwood flooring in a commission based
role.
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Authentic Leadership and Sales - My goal with this blog is to bring some serious fun into the leadership research- and business community. Serious, because leadership is the most fascinating topic in business for me and I’m not doing my PhD in leadership and organizational change for nothing. Fun, because what you do must be what you like. And learning about leadership is what I like best.
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