Salespeople are often thought to be a breed apart. It's true many of them are hardened against rejection and love the challenge of the chase, unlike some of their non-selling contemporaries. But they aren't visitors from another planet. And many of their techniques can be easily learned. From my viewpoint, every person in an organization should be taught to sell, because each one, functionally speaking, is a salesperson. Some are simply better at this craft, and do it more deliberately, with greater enjoyment and more consistently positive results than others. Take receptionists and other administrative types who answer the phones at a business or at a professional's office. Do they sell? Without a doubt they influence purchasing decisions directly and indirectly. The prickly office manager who sets appointments for the dentist discourages visits from patients. In a word, she un-sells them on the idea of coming in. Worse, by sounding so edgy, she has the effect of discouraging people from receiving the frequency of attention they truly need. I follow radio ads with interest, and often, I'll call the 800 numbers mentioned at the end, to see how I'm treated. There is one attorney whose ads are very slick, so I called, and his front line person was nothing less than rude and uninformed. Of course, when he invests in ads, he wants the best return he can get, but his associate is pushing away the leads he has already bought and paid for. Is she a salesperson? Of course, and a poor one at that, but her job is to build his practice, not to make callers vanish so she can return to "more important" duties. When you train everyone to be a deliberate, effective, responsible and accountable seller, you send an important signal that says: When everyone sells, everyone succeeds! |
