There are two types of sales people. The ones that get you excited and when you leave the store you are wagging your tail. But wait… once you get home and unwrap the package you realize you bought a crappy product or you didn’t need it.
I remember an example from twelve years ago. It was my first day at my job when I got the call.
—” Jose, you need to be in Puerto Rico on Monday.”
A Pissed client, no product training… a recipe for disaster… Our best engineer was with me. He knew the product inside/out but didn’t know what we sold to the client.
Digging in a folder I found our Sales proposal… A $2 Million software product.
The client was waiting anxiously for us with a specification document to develop a custom-made billing portal for his company.
Imagine his surprise when we told him he just bought a product. No customization whatsoever.
—” This is not sales sold us! You have to deliver what we bought!”
I came up to my boss, and we end up engaging our development team to provide multiple changes to the product at our cost.
We could have avoided this client’s grievance if we had been honest upfront.
Fortunately, there are the other sales persons.
They are not too appealing at first. They lay out pros and cons. These sales persons may even tell you the product or solution is not what you need at this moment.
When it comes to sales in my company, I am on the second group.
If a seller asks me: -” What price shall I list my home?”
I give my honest opinion based on comps and improvements.
I don’t sugar coat the value to sign the listing like the others do.
Later they’ll be bugging the seller to reduce the price, when the property doesn’t sell. Also, it will reveal the fact the property has been long in the market. Days on the market is the first things buyers ask when getting ready to make an offer.
The guys on the first type may even laugh at me. Come on man, hustle, you need to sell!
My response is: I will sell. But not at the expense of someone else.