What do you call yourself?

What do you call yourself?

I have been training sales people for many years and thousands of sales people have been through my courses. At the beginning of each course I ask each person to introduce themselves and, of course, along with the introduction we get their job title. There have been hundreds of different titles but the most common are:

Sales Representative Sales Executive Marketer Marketing consultant New Business Development Officer Internal Sales And, of course, just Sales Now there is nothing wrong with these titles. Being a Sales Representative, as we have already discussed, is a noble task and one to be proud of.

However, there is a problem here. When you go and visit a customer and you give him a card it says “Sales Representative” You are saying that you represent your company. He gives you his card and it says he is a “Buyer” Buying for his company. So you are on different sides doing different things, representing different interests. You are separating yourself from your customer before you start.

I met someone at a party once and I was chatting to him, making small conversation, so I asked him what he does for a living. That’s what you do at parties isn’t it. You have to ask them what they do for a living to know if you should be talking down to them or not. So I asked him the question and he replied: “I buy insurance”

“You Buy Insurance!” I said, “That’s interesting, what does someone who buys insurance do all day?”

“Well”, he replied, “I spend all day hunting around for the best insurance deals and I buy them for my customers.”

He is actually an insurance salesman. But he sees his job a little differently. He looks for the best deals for his customers and isn’t that just what his customer would want him to do?

Perhaps you should consider changing your job title to reflect what the customer would like you to be. Instead of a sales rep, consider some of the following:

Customer Representative Client Solutions Provider Customer Consultant Customer Support Staff Customer Services Consultant Client Liaison Executive If you give your card to a customer and it states that you are a Customer Representative, you are saying that you are on his side, you are looking after his interests, and you are much more likely to make the sale in the end.

I have many examples of how effective this can be and there are a number of companies I have trained, who have changed their job titles on the strength of this argument. Interestingly the job title that I included with tongue in cheek was “Client Solutions Provider”, but I know of three companies that are using this title very effectively. One trainee sales person who came to my training course had “Catalyst” on her business card and I love that.



What do you call yourself? - To learn more about this author, visit Richard Mulvey's Website.

Like this article? Share it with your friends

E-Mail | Print | More

Related Articles
Part Five - Prospecting for More Sales
	Part Five of a Ten Part Series. In this series, we explore all the different avenues of prospecting necessary for a business to succeed. Think of your business as a a beautiful garden, and then consider all the ...
The importance of having a media policy
	A media policy is essential to maximising all media opportunities – for any type of business, even if you are working from home. The following is an example of a media policy which you can use for your business. It ...
Sales Call Objective
	It is important for you to know what you want to happen as a result of meeting with your prospect because everything you say will lead toward that goal and you control the conversation and steer it in the right dire...
Selling - Effective Preparation - Part Two
	There’s an old saying we highlighted in part one of this two-part article: “There’s never enough time to do it right; there’s always enough time to do it over”. And, of course, we added the classic: “perfect prepara...
Sales Prospecting is the most important skill©
	All Sales skills are important. The most important is the one we do the poorest. For most of us in sales, that is Prospecting. here is an easy way to change that.

---

Related Forum Posts
	Why So Much Time?
	Re: How do you answer the phone?
	JW Site redesign
	Giving Gifts
	Funny #5
	Andrew's Abundance Mindset
	Which major company does a good job with customer service?
	I hate cold calling!