Are you a Salesperson?

Written by Aravind Chalapathy R| Executive Member of Marketing | (Crowd Core)

According to “Zig Ziglar”, a famous American salesman and a motivational speaker, he says, “ Everybody is a salesperson”. In his quotes, he stated that, “I have always said that everyone is in sales. Maybe you don’t hold the title of salesperson, but if the business you are in requires you to deal with people, you are in sales, my friend”.

Are we all a salesman? So, weird. But before discussing this controversial quest, lets first understand

who salesmen are?,

why are they called so?,

what could a salesman relate with marketing? Ans so on…

A salesperson is someone whose primary job it is to sell a product or service. They are individuals who are primarily engaged in personal selling activities on behalf of the company in order to generate business connections that will inevitably result in the salespeople delivering the product or service to the customers.

Even though we considered ourselves to be salespeople, there are some qualities and qualifications that must be known in order to become a salesperson. I recall that once our annual holidays began, each and every month, I would see a person come to my house to show me some story books, dictionary, encyclopaedia, and even home appliances, and they would try to sell it to us at a discount or at a low cost.

My family ignores, disappoints, and bullies them. I will feel sorry for them, but I will also think about how, despite being bullied by others, they are still polite and grateful. But it wasn't until recently that I realized the first and most important criteria for becoming a salesperson are patience and perseverance. Better qualities for a salesperson include empathizing, presenting, promoting, and selling products/services to existing and prospective customers using solid arguments. Establish, develop, and maintain positive business and customer relationships, Enthusiasm, Resiliency, Confidence, Honesty, Adaptability, and, most importantly, communication skills.

It is not just selling the product/service you have been assigned to sell to customers. It is something that involves customers, understanding their needs, and assisting them in finding what they are looking for. As a famous quote says,

“Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or solve solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service”.

Every aspect of our lives, as we all know, has two sides; for example, coins have two sides. Only two things can bring balance, like wise sales cannot support the market to sell the product, but we also need another important strategy called "marketing to stand beside in order to maintain the balance."

Source: Linkedin.com

The fact of the matter is: marketing is responsible for developing a strategy while salespeople are responsible for implementing strategies, when considering the basic goals of sales and marketing teams.

I've been talking about their price frustration many times with marketing managers. The impression is that with considerable thought and effort the marketing department is developing powerful products. You are researching and creating visibly attractive messages, all in the spirit of value creation and profit margin. It is then put in the hands of the sales team, who then become very tactical and make everything they need to do to make a sale instead of acting strategically. One tactic is to use prices to sell, eroding margins, depreciating the product and making the marketing strategy useless.

Salespeople also are often critical of the marketing departments, suggesting that the challenges of selling in their local markets are not understood. In particular since many marketing departments are in office buildings in major centers, while vendors in rural communities, possibly on opposite borders, are scattered around the countryside. This can be understood. As a result, marketing team strategies are perceived as "out of touch" with the local market and customer base.

What Happens When Sales & Marketing Work Together

"There's no question of companies considering significant improvements in key performance metrics when sales and marketing work together successfully: shortening sales rounds, falling market cost and lower sales costs." The nature of sales means that salesmen can acquire a first-hand understanding of customers and sales objections – many are difficult if not impossible.

Marketing is likely to have hard data to show which kinds of customers and potential customers respond to information, content, or language. Too many companies have unfortunately allowed Marketing and Sales to operate as fully separate entities. This is a huge supervision and missed chance because they are so much more than the sum of their parts together. In a way that nothing else can complement each other.

"Companies that have dynamic, adaptable sales and marketing processes report an average 10% more of salesmen than other companies fulfil their quotas."

Source: Linkedin.com

Is it important to be a marketer before becoming a salesperson?

Yeah, its true but why?

As the saying goes, “Nothing sticks in your head better than a story. Stories can express the most complicated ideas in the most digestible ways”.

In order to maximize sales and profit, firms should target the right customers. The best way to do this is by determining which segments are most likely to use the product. Marketers should match products to demographic characteristics like age, income, and education. Marketing research is also an important step you can conduct before selling your product. It helps to collect input from customers. You can find what they want and. If you can offer desirable products at a reasonable price, your sales and profits will rise.

One best example for this quest is our honourable prime minister Narendra Modi. Not only is Prime Minister Narendra Modi India's mascot but also its very successful salesman.

Since its assumption in May 2014, Modi has travelled around the world around eight and a half times, making almost 60 foreign visits. Although the success of his foreign journeys cannot be measured in numerical terms because many benefits are lagging, some are invisible, for example, improving or establishing links with another country. India has benefited in different ways from Modi's foreign trips. He has connected with the United States, signing several MoUs for India's welfare. He launched a scheme called 'Make in India' that would invite foreign investment in Indian production.