1.10 Key Takeaways & Terms

• A good salesperson does more than sell; they build a relationship and trust with the customer and offers solutions.
• Asking the right questions is critical to being successful in sales. It is the right questions that provide an opportunity for customers to share their challenges. Successful salespeople are always learning new things from selling techniques to technology in order to bring the best ideas to customers.
• Selling requires independence and discipline. There is no typical day in selling so salespeople have to be able to manage their own time.
• One of the biggest challenges of being in sales is the number of times you hear “no.” Successful salespeople are resilient, have a positive attitude, and are willing to take risks.
• Passion is one of the most important characteristics of a successful salesperson. If a salesperson isn’t passionate about what they sell, it’s unlikely that their customers will be motivated to buy.
• The primary role of a salesperson is to create value for the customer and the company. Salespeople create value for their customers, manage relationships, and gather information for their firms.
• A job in sales can be very rewarding on both a personal and a financial level.
• Companies sell to customers in business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) channels. The type of channel is based on the type of consumer who is buying.
• B2B selling differs from B2C selling because there are relatively few customers, larger purchases, and longer selling cycle.
• There are four types of salespeople: missionary salespeople, trade salespeople, prospectors, and account managers.
• Creating a networking plan will help make your networking efforts more effective.
• Practice what you want to say when you network with people. It’s best to be specific about what you are looking for and always ask for another person with whom you can network.
• Your social networking pages represent your personal brand. Be sure that all words, pictures, and videos are appropriate for prospective employers to view.
• Follow-up is the key to making networking work; don’t assume that because you haven’t heard back from someone that he doesn’t want to talk to you. Take the time to follow up within one week of every contact.
• Develop your FAB message using your brand positioning points as a foundation. Develop one or more FAB messages for each point.
• Create a portfolio to bring on job interviews to visually tell your FAB messages. Include extra copies of your résumé, samples of your work from class projects, internships, volunteer work, and relevant hobbies in a professional three-ring binder. Be sure all samples are clean and are in color where appropriate.

Account managers are responsible for ongoing business with a customer who uses a product.

Adaptive selling occurs when you adapt and customize your selling style based on the behavior of the customer.

Amiables focus on personal relationships in their communication style. They like to agree with everyone and focus on team building. They want to know the “why.”

Analyticals focus on facts, details, and analysis to decide but are reserved in their interactions with people. They want to know the “how.”

Boundary spanners: salespeople who operate outside the boundaries of the firm and in the field.

Business-to-business (also referred to as B2B) is when businesses sell products or services to other businesses for consumption by the ultimate consumer.

Business-to-consumer (also called B2C) is when a company sells a product or service directly to you as the ultimate consumer.

Character—the combination of your beliefs, tendencies, and actions that you take.

Collaborative selling is similar to consultative selling but it focuses more on building and nurturing the relationships.

Consultative selling goes a step further and incorporates solution selling in a way that it makes the buyers capable of identifying potential solutions to their problems on their own and the sales person is just a consultant who uses data from market research, conversations with the buyers, other user data and creates a narrative based on these to offer a clear context for the buyer.

Direct selling (independent sales agents).

Drivers are similar to analyticals in that they like facts, but only the ones that will quickly help them achieve their goals. They are people who are in a hurry and don’t really care about personal relationships, except as a means to their goal. They want to know the “what.”

Entrepreneurial selling (a business started by an individual).

Expressives enjoy building relationships, but don’t like focusing on day-to-day details; they like to paint a vision and inspire everyone to follow it. They like to focus on the “who.”

High-pressure selling (also known as Hard selling) involves playing with the emotional aspect and creating a psychological pressure on the buyer by touching upon points they fear, or take pride in.

Independent Business Owners [IBOs]: those who sell or distribute the products.

Inside salespeople rarely, if ever, meet face-to-face with customers.

Insight Selling relies on creating a deeper understanding of the customers and using this understanding to create trust and mutual respect, thereby creating a deeper connect with the customer.

Missionary salesperson: a salesperson that calls on people who make decisions about products but don’t actually buy them, and while they call on individuals, the relationship is business-to-business.

Networking is about exchanging value, not collecting business cards. It’s best to begin networking even before you are looking for a job so you can get to know people and provide value to them; it will help you when you begin your job search.

Nonprofit organizations are those that use their proceeds to reinvest in the cause and are granted “tax-exempt” status from federal and other taxes.

Nonprofit selling (also called fund-raising or development).

Order takers include retail sales clerks and salespeople for distributors of products, like plumbing supplies or electrical products, who sell to plumbers and electricians; others may work in a call centre, taking customer sales calls over the phone or Internet when customers initiate contact.

Order getters actively seek to make sales by calling on customers.

Outside salespeople communicate with customers in a variety of ways, including in-person meetings.

Partnership Selling is an approach where you consider the buyer as a partner rather than anything else and helping them achieve what they want

Personal selling involves communication between a customer and a salesperson with the intention of providing information for the customer to make a buying decision.

Prospector: a salesperson whose primary function is to find prospects, or potential customers.

Provocative selling method involves provoking the buyers to see a different viewpoint, bring about a sense of urgency and awareness to solving the problems the face.

Relationship selling is when you build a relationship and tailor solutions according to your customers’ needs.

Role conflict occurs when the expectations people set for you differ from one another.

Sales management is the art of influencing someone else’s thinking and mind in a way that they will eventually end up buying your product or offering.

Sales support work with salespeople to help make a sale and to take care of the customer after the sale.

Selling is the act of persuading and convincing anyone to buy products or offerings of any kind with a view to satisfy their expectations in exchange of some payment or revenue.

Solution selling is when a salesperson highlights a problem and how that problem can be a hindrance in the life of the buyer.

Social style matrix: a matrix based on patterns of communication that characterize communication behaviours based on two dimensions: assertiveness and responsiveness.

Strategic alliance when the selling relationship goes beyond consultative selling and establishes a true method for mutual benefit.

Trade salesperson: someone who calls on retailers and helps them display, advertise, and sell products to consumers.

Transactional selling is when you are focused on a single sale or transaction.