| Beth Rogers - What's our image? |
The joy of contributing the Sales and Business Development chapter of The Marketing Century (published this month by Wiley) was that it gave me the chance to reflect on the long history of selling, and to speculate that in the 21st century we might even achieve public recognition as a respectable profession. But it will take a lot to shake off the media stereotype of Delboy. Just today I was explaining the undergraduate sales option at Portsmouth Business School to someone who commented "Not Delboy stuff then?!" It was in jest, but you just can't get away from that lovable little Cockney rogue when you have Sales... in your job title.
Delboy is not the only media stereotype to worry about. It has been proven, in very objective academic research on scripts going back to 1903, that there are more negative storylines involving salespeople than positive ones. We can’t blame the scriptwriters. They are reflecting what they see reported as news - cases where bad selling has had dire consequences. Even when consumer selling is ethical, it can be clumsy. Just recently, I have had two experiences where the salesperson tried a hard close too early. Being a cautious buyer, I hung on to my objections for 24 hours. After some time to think, I actually bought more from them. There would have been money left on the table as well as buyer remorse if they had got their way with the early close.
| Del Boy & Rodney - Dodgy Dealers or Super Heroes? |
Of course, the companies who persist in training salespeople in short-term tactics don't necessarily know what they don't know. However, many companies do know that there is a problem - labour market statistics show that employers report a massive 50% + skills gap in sales roles. Shareholders may be prepared to demand the latest best practice in finance or product development, but they don't always know what to demand in terms of best practice selling.
Fortunately, the times they are a' changing. The trends in professional selling in business-to-business markets that have been shown to deliver results, such as solution selling and key account management, are now the embedded norm in best practice companies. Training departments are now more likely than ever to be investing as much in developing salespeople as they do in developing engineers.
Purchasing professionals would say – we expect nothing less than excellence from the people who represent our suppliers! The same will come in consumer markets. Some big names have been the subject of, and have responded to concentrated consumer lobbying on social media sites. Since networking sites have been a factor in political revolutions in the past few weeks, their capacity to demand better selling is hardly in question.
When bad selling has nowhere left to hide, we might just see a storyline in a soap opera with a salesperson as the hero! But do you think we're heroes, or just comic-book material? And what else can we do to improve this image of ourselves?
Questions & Comments
Example Question / Comment
We've stamped out most of the obvious "bugs" now Beth, so will be starting the email broadcasts again from Monday 4th April, only limited (for now) to firstly the Registered Readers, and then the bigger sales team leaders on The Sales Direction Database.
So I hope this example of me with a Question / Comment will also demonstrate what happens when people use the LinkedIn login option, for example where my name then appears and links back to my LI profile, as will anyone else's. (Just click on my name folks, or Beth's, and you'll see).
That deters the spammers, as well as giving us all an easy way to find out who we are talking to. And let me just note that ModernSelling.com needs to be given your email address that you use for such things, so that we can send you email nudges when your discussion(s) get another reply/ comment/ question, and because LinkedIn do not release that - even though you'll be giving your permission with the couple of clicks that are required. Our normal privacy rules still apply though (e.g. you're not putting your email address into any sort of public play).
All pretty simple and convenient though, we hope, and so conducive to some great contacts, advice, discussions, and new business results - as per our "It's a New Business World" starting strap line. Please do get involved and enjoy, one and all.
Posted by Neil Warren on
This is a great storyline
I have a course that covers this very subject and a sample slide at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N45c-0AkBjI
"We are all guilty by association!"
Napoleon's Law.
Posted by Shaz Quereshi FInstSMM on
Improve your brand/self image
Yes, nice one Shaz - that video is soooo true.
And if you now have a go at logging in to ModSell here with the LinkedIn option - it should in theory overwrite your "manual" account here, bring in your Linkedin Profile, link to that, include a photo (and a lot more we can do in future - so I'm told) - but which anyway helps a lot to improve those trust-building and credibility links.
Posted by Neil Warren on
Bingo!
...and there you are - how cool is that!?
Posted by Neil Warren on
Workshop-webinars also coming
Hi Beth / Shaz
We're trying now to also get these online discussions to lead to a bit more "work shop" than "talking shop", so if you can have a think about what are the MOST pressing issues around selling, and give us all some pointers on this discussion...
http://www.modernselling.com/news-and-events/webinar-corner/Dead-failing-sales-marketing-techniques-workshop-webinar-discussion-tips-series-20114005.aspx
...we'd be delighted to address those issues too - and expect you both to participate, of course - so that we can finally start to actually do something about it all.
Many thanks - Neil
Posted by Neil Warren on
Nick de Cent is after "training" stats for Times supplement...
Hi Beth (and Shaz) - ex-Editor of ModernSelling (magazine version) Nick de Cent, is after some statistics about what % of UK sales people do actually have any formal sales training as part of their job.
This is for a supplement he's writing for The Times, and the numbers from America were coming back as scarily low!
He's in the ModSell LinkedIn Group...
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Why-is-it-we-assumed-1328087.S.57843683
...if that's easier, or I'm sure we can fetch hime back out here for a chat, if you want to post on this discussion.
Pretty relevant and important to people's (justified?) perception of us all, I thought.
Posted by Neil Warren on
Sales Training
I have recently been looking on job boards, in particular the training roles, there are now more jobs out there for for teaching/trainer roles within the sales industry, I know the worlds local branch spend alot of resources on sales coaching to continually train staff. All the other major banks are recruiting sales trainers whuch is equally evident.
I know that they are focusing on people like myself who fly off the handle when someone cold call or tries to sell me something whether in a shop or telephone call.
I have the feeling that you Neil dont suffer fools!
Posted by Colin H Rippon on
My Question / Comment Is...
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