The first probable question after being introduced to someone is: What do you do? A person who is in sales would usually say that I am in Business Development or I am a Sales and Marketing Professional. I wonder why? When someone asks me what I do for living? I say, I am a salesman. I sell for my company, its products, its brand and I sell hard! Why all the big brands from the west are highly successful globally? Because they sell hard!
On the contrary, the perception in India is that if you are selling something, you are here to ‘CON’/ manipulate the customer. And trust me, perceptions rule the mind. We never accept a sales person as an advisor who can help us solve the problems by giving us the most appropriate solution. It’s never perceived as a Win – Win for both buyer and seller.
In a business, customer is the core of any strategy similarly sales is the core of any organization structure. This means that two cores, customers and sales, need to have a positive interaction. What can be more critical to any business? Sales is all about analyzing how one can make client organization more successful. It is about assessing their needs; analyzing their problems and proposing the best possible solution addressing their requirements. In the process we cement great relationships! Sales do not end with the closure of the deal.
It actually begins at that point as after getting the order one has to ensure that the solution is working well for the customer and is addressing the identified challenges. Sales is 80 percent asking the right questions to the customers and listening to what is said & not said. The sales cycle is a cocktail of both an art and science, focused on one objective of helping the customer take the right decision.
Customer focus, sensitivity to customer’s needs and ability to manage maze of internal & external relationships make one a good sales person. And over a period of time they naturally become good judge of human behavior and demonstrate strengths in managing different kinds of human traits / personalities. Like someone has rightly said: Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman – not the attitude of the prospect. I truly believe that sales people are the ‘Movers and Shakers’ of every business.
How many of us know that Steve Jobs of Apple, Michel Dell of Dell, Akio Morita of Sony, Dhirubhai Ambani of Reliance, Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail and Vineet Nair of HCL have all been sales persons. A strong leader has to be an effective sales person – for he can sell a philosophy of management, a product, a standard of ethics, a sense of caring. Tell me any business that can thrive on a weak sales force.
Sales profession is the largest employment generator and yet there is no dedicated subject on sales in B schools. Yes, we offer Sales & Marketing with 85% skew on brand / product management. Why? How you can be a successful marketer or Business manager if you don’t understand sales? Sales is a high growth and high rewarding career stream and at the same time a high pressure job. Understanding your organization’s value proposition; understanding of customer business; competitive landscape; SWOT and effective communication (more of listening ! ) skills is not learnt overnight.
It is acquired over a period of time with a great deal of patience. Sales is one function that grooms one to be a successful entrepreneur. Sales is all about winning! There are no reasons / explanations in missing ones goal. You either win or you lose. Thus it requires tremendous amount of guts to take this profession as your performance is under a microscope on a daily basis. It is definitely not for weak hearted! I take pride in being a sales person. Do you?