Who's Really At Fault?

One thing that continues to amaze me to this day as long as I've been in sales:

It's amazing when a customer buys something and all is well, the customer wil say, "I bought ________." On the flip side, when something goes awry, the customer will say, "You sold me _______."

Excuse me, but didn't you make the conscious decision to make that purchase? Now I'm not talking about cases in which a salesperson lied or gave misleading information; in those cases (with few exceptions) a customer has every right to be upset.

It may not seem this way for some reason, but as a salesperson who is also a customer I totally understand that a TRUE salesperson, without lying or misleading, will do the following things:

*Ask questions to gather information about the customer
*Present a solution based on the info gathered and the salesperson's experience/knowledge
*Answer any questions the customer has
*Reassure the customer if necessary and overcome any objections using the info gathered from the customer
*Process the sale after receiving permission from the customer

Notice that at no point did I mention "Put a gun to customer's head and make them buy." Contrary to popular belief and all the sales books I read, the customer has complete control over the sales process until they relinquish that control. Think about it: no matter what that salesperson says or does, good or bad, high pressure or super nice, the customer can always walk away. Just like a customer can make the decision NOT to buy, they can also decide not to and not have to blame the salesperson for their own conscious decision.

We ARE actually human!

In today's age, salespeople are more accessible than ever, thanks in large part to cell phones. No longer do customers have to wait for their sales rep to get to the office to get in touch with them, or to return previous phone calls. Now that seemingly everyone has a cell phone, it can be a plus for both the customer (being able to get in touch with their sales rep throughout the day even if they're out of the office) and the sales rep (being able to be accessed while away from the office). However, there is a point where this becomes more of a hindrance than a help: sales reps are humans just like you.

Allow me to explain a scenario:

Like many other occupations, I as a sales rep have a company-issued cell phone intended for business use, i.e., being able to contact customers and vice versa. Also like many other occupations, I'm an hourly employee (plus commission), meaning that using the company-issued phone is considered work. As such, I'm not allowed to use the phone for business reasons while not at work. The problem with that is that some customers don't realize this and call incessantly. I'm not referring to the ones that call once and conveniently leave a voicemail, I'm speaking of the ones that call as if the house is burning down.

Just like others, on their days off, sales reps like to enjoy them. Not to trivialize whatever reason you may be harassing the sales rep about, please be patient and give them a chance to listen to the voicemail (if you left one in the first place) and let them enjoy their day just like you'd like to.

One of the worst questions to ask a salesperson is...

Everyone who's ever sold anything has gotten this question at some point in their career. Potential customers mean well when they ask this question, but in all reality, it's pointless really. I'll explain why later, but for now, on to the dreaded question:

"What do you have/use?"

A very common misconception about a product or service is that if the person selling it is using it, it MUST be the best out there. The problem customers tend to make is that, based on this belief, they will buy based on this, thinking that the product/service works for them.

A perfect example is the look of shock people have when I respond to that question:

Customer: "What phone do you have?"
Me: "I don't have a phone. "
Customer: (typical response) "Stop lying! You work for a phone company and don't own a phone?"
Me: (typical response) "That's right. I do have a company phone that's assigned to me--that's it. Truth be told, because I use a phone so infrequently, I'd likely have a prepaid phone if I didn't work for this company. Frankly, that's what works for me."

The point I'm getting at is that the salesperson picked whatever product/service they did because it works for THEM (or at the time they bought it they thought so). Buying something that works for someone else and not yourself is a recipe for failure.

Why lie?

We've all seen this...a sales rep somewhere has lied to somebody to close a sale. It's been going on since the beginning of sales, and unfortunately there's some bad apples that will continue to do so.

I'm here to shed some light on this. A TRUE salesperson will not lie to close a sale. If anything, they will be 2000% truthful, even if it means not closing a sale. There's one huge underlying reason for this: it's called a "chargeback."

For the uninformed, let me explain: in most commissioned sales, when a salesperson sells a particular product or service, the company they work for makes money, and in turn they pay the salesperson a commission on that product or service. If the customer returns that product or cancels that service, the company then loses money, and in turn, that commission that was initially paid to the salesperson is taken back. 

At it's purest, since a customer that's been lied to is usually an irate customer due to the lie, in most cases that customer will return the product or cancel the service, resulting in lost commissions for the lying salesperson. That's just the beginning: there's time wasted and lost from spending time with the salesperson to make the initial purchase (and probably previous visits ad discussions prior to the purchase), dealing with the salesperson to correct/explain the lie, dealing with management (local management, district management, corporate management) to correct/explain the lie, dealing with customer service to understand/correct/explain the lie (or make it worse), etc.

So, as you see, there's absolutely no incentive for the TRUE salesperson to lie to make a sale. If nothing else, it's simply the right thing to do.

So much for your word...

Ever wondered why that salesperson that you'd talked to before looks at you crazy suddenly?

***DISCLAIMER***Let's get this out the way before I say what I'm going to say. I'm not exactly condoning the actions of the salesperson that I'm about to describe; I'm simply explaining the thinking behind the action.

Imagine for a second if you were desperately trying to sell your car because you had to pay off your mortgage or otherwise you'd have no place to live. I stop by and talk to you about buying the car. We spend all kinds of time together working out a deal. I've asked how long you've had the car, had my mechanic check the car out, test drove it with you, haggled on the price a bit because I do want and like the car but it's a touch more than I can pay for it. We've even set up a couple of conditions where I'd actually pay you the price that you want for it; you might have even slipped and told me the real reason your selling the car. While I don't buy the car that day, because I'm highly interested and I like you, we'll set up a time for me to come back on pay day in 3 days and I'll give you cash. Delighted, you agree and you'll even have it detailed for me when I pick it up.

Fast forward to pay day, you're eagerly anticipating being able to sell the car so you can afford to pay for the house to live in, but something really weird happened. I pull up to your house driving an identical car to yours that I bought from your brother earlier that day for the same exact price that you were selling it for. Even worse, I ask you if you can help me with a problem with the car.

How would you look at me?

Have a clue what's going through that salesperson's mind?

Why Can't I Buy This?

Here's a thought that might need some clarification... I've sold a few things in my career. The majority of my sales have been devoted in the wireless phone industry (cell phones & service, etc.). Something that comes up quite frequently is when I client wants to buy something but the sales rep won't sell it to them for some crazy reason.

While this seems odd, let me point to the sales rep thought process as this may explain things. 

As a sales rep--especially a commissioned one--it behooves them to make as many sales a possible to earn money, correct? If that's the case, if the sale rep is intentionally not selling you something, then there's very likely some logical reason behind it, and 9 times out of 10, it's something that the rep has zero control over. These might include:
(1) customer's not eligible for that product or service for some reason (credit, tenure, policy, etc.)
(2) in the case of accounts, that client talking to the sales person is not authorized to make changes to that account (very common if one spouse is the actual account holder and that spouse is not the one talking to the sales rep and with business accounts)
(3) the product or service you're requesting is a piece of crap (there are differing opinions on whether a sales person should actually mention this...I'll reserve that topic for another post.)

 With that in mind, 9 times out of 10, that sales rep who intentionally won't sell you something isn't being a jerk, just like he/she is not intentionally trying to not make money; they simply can't sell it to you.

My Sales Background

My first foray into sales was with Radio Shack in 2002. By 2002, Radio Shack wasn't the same store that it was in the 80's and 90's. While they still sold electronics, electronic parts and batteries of all kinds, Radio Shack had become a big authorized retailer for TV service (DirecTV and Dish Network) and cell phone service (Sprint and Verizon at the time, and Tracfone to a MUCH lesser extent). In roughly 8 months, I was promoted from Tier 3 to Tier 2 Sales Associate, and roughly a month later began attending Manager-in-Training meetings.

After a few months of impatiently (like many 20-somethings) waiting for further advancement opportunities, I began working as a sales consultant for a company called Interstate Connections around the fall of 2003 (side note: I continued to work for Radio Shack as well for a couple of months, left and then went back on a part-time basis). Interstate Connections was an authorized retailer of Dish Network, XM and Sirius radio (back when they were still separate entities), and Sprint. Interstate Connections set up kiosks in Petro and TA truck stops around the country; as such, 99% of the customer base were truck drivers. Aside from being offered more money than I was making at Radio Shack, the biggest motivator for me to accept a position here was discovered during my initial interview: the sales manager specifically told me that he was looking for a person that could be groomed for sales management, not just a sales person. For various reasons, there was very high turnover with this company; after being there for a year, I was the second-longest tenured employee in my district (technically the longest since the person hired before me had been out for a few months on military leave). During my time there, my sales team of 3 (2 sales consultants including me and our sales manager) broke the company record for total monthly sales; all 3 of us were in the top 5 in sales in the entire company.

In February 2005, I began as an In-Home Sales Rep for GutterGuard of Memphis, once a subsidiary of Dixie Homecrafters. During my brief 2-month stay there, my job description was to make sales to preset leads in the customer's homes. Even though almost all of the appointments were preset, the hardest part was still to get into the clients' homes to make the sales presentation (you would be surprised). Since our product was much more expensive than our competitors', something that was instilled in us during our sales meetings was the importance of the sales presentation and the art of closing the sale. 

From there I moved on to T-Mobile USA as a sales representative. My manager told me during my initial interview that he was hiring future managers--music to my ears. After roughly 8 months, I was promoted to Sales Manager, managing two different stores during my tenure. While I had some success as a sales rep (once leading my market in sales), I was even more successful as a sales manager, with my stores and sales reps receiving multiple sales awards and recognition.

After T-Mobile, on a suggestion from one of my old managers at Interstate Connections, I became a licensed life, accident & health producer and briefly worked for Bankers Life & Casualty. I learned to appreciate a few things while working on this job: (1) how insurance REALLY works, (2) the life of a commission-only based sales rep (even though I'd done this once before at GutterGuard, since I had started a family since that time, things were very different this time) and (3) the life of one that has to get work for themselves (i.e., if I didn't set my own sales appointments, then there would be no food on the table for the family). Mainly since I now had a family and needed some kind of guaranteed income (i.e., base salary), this only lasted roughly two months.

I began working at Wireless Advocates in the summer of 2008. This company is an authorized retailer (beginning to notice the authorized retailer trend?) of T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T and DirecTV, and they have kiosk set up at Costco and Staples locations, and also some military exchange bases across the country. Very similar to my time at Interstate Connections, there was pretty high turnover here, as I found myself as an acting sales manager after about 2-3 months on the job. While I did experience some great success here, the high turnover rate (for example, I had 2 different district managers, no sales manager and 3 different coworkers while the other location in town went through 3 different sales manager and just as many sales reps in 6 months), once one of our partners had an opening, I almost literally jumped at the chance...

Which brings me to my current employer, AT&T Mobility. Initially I was what's called a National Retail Field Representative. In layman's terms, I was primarily responsible for helping drive sales at some of AT&T's authorized retailers; namely Wal-Mart, Radio Shack, Sam's Club and Best Buy. This was done by setting up table events to attract attention and, to a lesser extent, helping train employees and helping them make sales. After a few months, the Field Rep position was phased out and I was allowed to transfer into a Sales Consultant position at an AT&T retail store, which is what I do to this day. Some of my duties include the sales of wireless services and products, home services such as TV, internet and home phone services, and small business solutions.

What this blog is...

At some point in life, we have all dealt with those people...

Those people that seems to always have only their own best interests in mind...

Those people that don't care what you want or what you need...

Those people who, like people in other industries, get a bad rap thanks to some bad apples...

Those people who get all the blame when something goes wrong but hardly any praise when things go right... Those people who only want your money and only sees you as $$$...

The almighty salesman/saleswoman/sales rep/sales consultant/whatever you want to call them.

Having worked in sales in some form since 2002, I've always toyed with the idea of writing something that explains the mind of the true salesperson and why they act the way they do. First a few of disclaimers:
(1) This is based solely on the experience and mindset of one man: myself. While I'd like to think I can speak for everyone, I simply can't. This is my viewpoint and only mine (except when noted).
(2) This is about (again, in my opinion) on how the TRUE salesperson thinks and acts. I'm speaking of salespeople that are looking for what I call "win-win" situations in which both the salesperson and the client "win."
(3) While I realize that I can't control what others think, I simply ask that the reader approaches this with an open mind. If you agree with what I say, good. If not, that's good too. As long as it is not insulting or discriminating, I'm totally open to feedback.

With that said, my next post will give you a little background information of my sales career.