Salesman: Crucial Character in Business

Sale is a part of marketing, but marketing is a broader concept. But sales is a tiny part of marketing; still sales is the most significant part of any business. There are lot of pundits who have spoken about various theories, various formulas of selling goods to the customer. I will pen down just few very simple things that I have learnt in my life as a salesman. From my point of view marketing and sales is nothing more than relationship. It is all about relationship between a salesman and his customer. When people buy a product they actually want to satisfy their needs. People buy a product to solve a problem and a good salesman is always aware of his customer’s problem. People buy from salespeople not because they understand their products but because they feel that the salesperson understands their problems. When a salesperson starts asking questions to a buyer it is nothing but he is trying to make rapport with the buyer and the stronger the rapport is, more the chances to be successful in selling, because most of the buying happens unplanned. It is the salesperson who actually makes buyers to think about their problems. A salesperson can always do that buy asking such types of questions which will be directed to the problems of the customers. But questioning about problem of the customers needs to be very much planned because one wrong question may ends up with the closing of sales without anything being sold. Spin selling model always says that a salesperson should understand the problem of the customers. This is similar to the 5th habit from “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People” by Steven Covey which says, “seek first to understand then to be understood”. Developing rapport is not a conscious thing; the irony is that the best sales rapport is developed at the unconscious level. There are several models which are used to make a successful sale such as SPIN, SPANCO models, but above all the relationship between buyer and seller is the most significant criteria that play the pivotal role in selling goods. Selling is not complete once the deal is closed but it is the initiation of the credibility of a seller, now he has to keep his promise always to his customer to maintain his goodwill and also the attributes of the product, which he has sold to his customer. He should solve the problem of the customer then only a successful sale can be performed. It is very much necessary to keep the promise to the customer every time, because failing once can lead to the switching over a customer from his product or company to another. Therefore salesman is a crucial character in business. He can make a business profitable and in other hand can ruin the market share of the company.