The Death of The Salesman? #78 072401

"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine . . . A salesman is got to dream, boy." —Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman

A lot of people have lost the dream and pronounced the death of the salesman. They say all buying will soon be done electronically and there will be no need for a salesmen.

Operating behind on-line web sites, catalogs and brochures are the talented photographers, artists, illustrators, and copywriters who sell a vivid picture of the product or service—whether with words or illustration. The better people demonstrate their talent and capitalize on their strengths, the more they sell.

While computers can search by name and come up with a profile. A sales professional knows his customer by name and knows the person behind the name.

There is probably a better way to do almost anything. Successful people assume that there is room for improvement and set about making improvements. In the zeal to improve, let's not overlook the fact that electronics can improve our standard of living but they can't touch lives. By their nature, people need people to make them feel important.

Helen Keller observed, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” Electronics may stimulate and excite but they don't touch the heart. Only a person can do that.

Selling boils down to finding a need and filling it. People will always have needs and somewhere in the buying equation is people finding solutions to those needs whether it be face-to-face or portal-to-portal. Before you say, "a sale is just a "click" away," remember the computer doesn't automatically put the sizzle in the sell.

I am not a computer, I'm a person computing how to build better rapport with other people. If computers could build relationships, how come so many people with computers feel so unimportant and irrelevant?

Buyers are looking for sales professionals who can help them solve problems. They are not looking for a product or service; they are seeking solutions to problems. Uncovering the problem and positioning yourself as a solution to that problem is what sets the professional apart from the computer and the competition.

Take time and ask questions of the prospect or buyer so you get a better understanding of the problem(s) he or she has. By paying attention to what he or she asks, you can often tailor your product or service to solve their specific problem.

To a degree everyone sells. Parents sell their children on doing their chores; teachers sell students on doing their assignments; coaches sell their athletes on practicing and improving their skills; ministers sell their congregates on helping others; managers sell employees on being effective. The better the rapport, the easier the sell.

Successful people in all walks of life learn that the ability to "build relationships" is little more than salesmanship under another name. Using people-to-people salesmanship, many professionals develop a warm and rewarding relationship with their customers, clients, children, team, congregates, employees.

The principles of salesmanship (relationship building) can be taught and learned. But a head full of knowledge doesn't make a person a professional salesman. Just like a professional in any field, you don't become a pro until you have spent a practical amount of time gaining practical "field" experience. It is in the face-to-face encounters with buyers that a person develops and hones their relationship building skills. Other things being equal, the sale usually goes to the salesman with the best rapport.

Selling is not an easy job. Nothing about success is easy. As Henry Ware Beecher voiced it, "Victories that are cheap are cheap." In four words, achievement has a price. So, dream big! Dream of helping others and discover how quickly your dreams become reality. Far from death, the relationship-building salesman lives and lives well. He or she, is still out there in the blue riding on a smile, a shoeshine and a well-earned rapport with their customer.

Selling is a great profession. If you succeed there are many perks; If you fail, you can always go into management.

Three Point Success Summation

SUCCESS THOUGHT: Computers can help facilitate rapport building but a computer cannot, of its own, build a relationship. Relationship-building is a people-to-people activity. The better you are at relationship building, the more successful salesman you become. If you want to succeed, you need to build relationship, personally and with the help of a computer.

SUCCESS QUOTE: "Along with the opportunity and privilege to make a sale goes the responsibility to make the sale." —Wayne Nalls

SUCCESS ACTION: Top successful people constantly work on their relationship building skills. Start improving a key relationship today.

The Red Walking Socks #39

During a recent and unplanned trip to the local hospital emergency room, my wife was required to stay 24 hours for observation. She had gotten up during the night, blacked out and fell backward hitting her head on the marble topped night stand beside the bed. Nine hours later, a half-dozen test and seven stitches, a nurse took her to a hospital room for 24 hour observation.

It seems a lot of people fall. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2008 analysis of 2005 statistics on falls, each year one of every three Americans 65 and older falls—and almost a third require medial treatment.

I thought it strange when a nurse came into my wife’s room and replaced her hospital-issued green “walking socks” with red ones. When I questioned the nurse why the change, she said, “the red socks alerts all the nurses on the floor that the wearer is prone to fall.” The red socks act as a warning sign and alert the nurses to be extra vigilant.

It would be nice if disenchanted customers, patrons or clients wore red walking socks to alert you that you had fallen out of step with them. It’s easy for a customer’s loyalty to slip on a late shipment, or stumble on a product mix up, or lose balance over what they perceive as a lack of attention resulting in a loss of sales and even switching to a competitor.

Often customers will not tell you what you are doing wrong, so sales fall prevention begins with you. Keep yourself in front of your customer—personal visit, phone call, email, fax or a simple note sent via US Mail—on a regular basis. Six actions you can take right now to reduce your risk of being a victim of falling sales:

1. Consistently review your sale reports and look for variances, especially those that aren’t easily explainable.
2. Look for evidence of inroads being made by your competition.
3. Ask your customer to evaluate your service, product and pricing. Just say, “How am I doing?” “Are we living up to your expectations?”
4. Ask, “What can I do to improve my serve?
5. Ask, “Is there something else I or my company can do to make your job easier?”
6. Ask, “What does your supervisor or boss think about me and my company?”

Whatever you do, you should consistently follow the first rule of customer service: enough is never enough.

Always be working to improve your service.

HOG THOUGHT:
Professionals are constantly doing two jobs at once: selling profitably today and positioning themselves to be successful tomorrow. If you plan on tomorrow being more profitable than today, you must make a habit of looking for red warning signs and take corrective action.

HOG QUOTE:
“I was always afraid of dying. Always. It was my fear that made me learn everything I could about my airplane and my emergency equipment, and kept me flying respectful of my machine and always alert in the cockpit.” — Chuck Yeager

HOG ACTION:
Be alert to recognize customer or client dissatisfaction, discontent, or frustration. At the first sign of red walking socks, determine the problem, assure your customer or client that you are on it and then get the issue(s) resolved in a timely manner. The quicker a problem is recognized, the faster it is solved. Great opportunities often are disguises as problems. Recognizing and solving problems is a key to relationship building.