Sales is about helping people, we all have a fantastic product or service which we know can change a person's life. So of course we can help people, it all depends on how we go about doing it.
Too many people try and trust their product or service down people's throats and of course we don't like that.
Let's think about who we normally buy from? People we love, people we trust; our friend and our family. People who we know will stick around once they have sold it to us.
I was at drinks just before Christmas and got talking to a CIO. I asked him who he purchased things from. That's easy he said, "people that understand my business, people that understand my industry, people that are relevant".
He then added a final point which was the "no arehole rule", in the US I think you say "asshole". Meaning that just one "bad apple, ruins the barrel".
He went onto say that 80% of outreach to him was rubbish, templated (in fact competitors used the same templates) and was easy to dismiss.
Every since I can remember, we have always wanted to differentiate ourselves in sales and it would seem according to this CIO we are all the same.
Did this CIO want to be helped, of course he did, but he wanted relevance and he wanted a relationship.
and PS: He didn't take cold calls.
Many people would say sales is about taking advantage of people. It hurts me to hear people say that. I don’t think people would come to that conclusion without relating it to their own personal experience. This tells me that they have either had an unpleasant experience with salespeople or someone has shared with them their disappointing experience. Sales is not about taking advantage of people. Sales is about helping people. It’s exactly the reason why I say sales is leadership and leadership is sales. A good salesperson is also a good leader. The two should go hand in hand.
unknownx500
