You Must Like Your Customer Types If You Are in Sales
If you are in sales, you have to like the types of customers you will be doing business with on a regular basis. This sounds easy enough, but many people who get into sales do not realize the types of customers or prospects they will need to forge relationships with to steady their ship towards a path of success.
I'll explain further. If you enjoy wearing a suit and tie, an industrial sales job will be a poor fit for you (unless you enjoy having to buy suits on a regular basis). If you have a general dislike for doctors and nurses, how in the world will you be able to forge relationships with them? If you don't like dealing with the general public, why in the world would you go into retail sales? If cars don't excite you, how are you going to be able to excite a prospect that shows up on the lot?
Many of your customers should be people that you can be friends with outside of work. Building these types of relationships can take your sales to a whole new level. Friends will always readily help with referrals that turn into new business, and everyone enjoys helping someone they like succeed.
Remember, no amount of money will make you happy if you are continually having to deal with a group of people you don't enjoy being around. Before you accept that next sales position that comes along, think hard about whether or not you will enjoy being around the types of customers for that particular industry.
If you enjoyed this article, please visit Top Sales Blog for "fresh" and "daily" articles written by Will at http://www.topsalesblog.com
I'll explain further. If you enjoy wearing a suit and tie, an industrial sales job will be a poor fit for you (unless you enjoy having to buy suits on a regular basis). If you have a general dislike for doctors and nurses, how in the world will you be able to forge relationships with them? If you don't like dealing with the general public, why in the world would you go into retail sales? If cars don't excite you, how are you going to be able to excite a prospect that shows up on the lot?
Many of your customers should be people that you can be friends with outside of work. Building these types of relationships can take your sales to a whole new level. Friends will always readily help with referrals that turn into new business, and everyone enjoys helping someone they like succeed.
Remember, no amount of money will make you happy if you are continually having to deal with a group of people you don't enjoy being around. Before you accept that next sales position that comes along, think hard about whether or not you will enjoy being around the types of customers for that particular industry.
If you enjoyed this article, please visit Top Sales Blog for "fresh" and "daily" articles written by Will at http://www.topsalesblog.com
Tags: customers, enjoy, jobs, like, sales, types, www.topsalesblog.com
5 Comments
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Comment by Karl Goldfield on August 6, 2008 at 9:06pm - This is a great post on knowing who you relate to. What you may consider is that you have to believe in what difference you are trying to make. Then take the good Ian mentions and fid it in everyone. If you can marry the two, people are easier to enjoy.
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Comment by Will on August 7, 2008 at 4:14am - Great comments, and you do have to empathize with your prospects and customers. If you naturally don't have anything in common with them, empathizing becomes much more difficult.
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Comment by Brad Trnavsky on August 7, 2008 at 8:43am - Ian can you post the link to your post?
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Comment by Ian Brodie on August 7, 2008 at 9:58am -
Hi Brad - it's Sales Tips from Angelina Jolie
You won't believe the extra traffic I've had by having Angelina Jolie's name in my post title - I'm thinking of "Naked Supermodels on Sales Strategy" next.
Although I'm not sure how much of the new traffic is actually interested in sales....
Ian
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© 2009 Created by Brad Trnavsky on Ning. Create Your Own Social Network
Funny you should post this - I've just posted a sales tip on www.sales-excellence.co.uk on how to begin to forge relationships with people you might initially think you don't like. The tip is originally from Angelina Jolie no less!
Ian