Have You Ever Worked In Sales?

Besides my own practice, only for a short while.

I know there are many salespeople out there who've become sales trainers, but I've had the opportunity to go the other way. I don't want to teach anyone how to sell using the old-fashioned manipulative approach. Well, I suck at it myself.

And I agree that 99.9% of the sales trainers, who used to be salespeople, are great experts at selling.

But...

As the saying goes, people love buying but hate being sold to.

With this in mind, I would be an idiot to sharpen my selling skills. Why would I improve a skill people hate and do their level best to avoid me like the plague? It makes no sense to me. If I want to learn gourmet cooking, why would I study how to poison people?

My unique edge comes from the being an expert at how "premium" buyers buy "premium" technology solutions. I used to be a buyer for some 15 years, thus I know how buyers make decisions. So I help my clients to create a decision-making dialogue during which the buyer's people and the seller's people jointly decide what to do next. It's a jointly-made yes/no decision. And in my world of selling, "no" is as valid of an answer as "yes" is. In my clients' worlds, salespeople don't fail when the buyer's decision is no.

The other point is that in our world, there are no salespeople. We've got engineers, technologists and consultants who are also skilled in the art and science of facilitating a decision-making process. The difference is that, unlike salespeople, these professionals don't have pre-created agendas as to how much of what to sell. They facilitate the decision-making process with an unbiased and open mind, and are detached from the decision itself.

That's why they are regarded as respected industry experts buyers are eager to meet, not dreaded peddlers buyers try to run and hide from. A drastically different mindset.

The objective is not merely sell more of the company's product and services, but to help the buyer to make the best decision. That is, a decision that best supports the buyer's objectives and overall organisational strategy.

Again, this is not a selling process between superiors (buyers) and subordinates (salespeople), but a decision-making process between peers.

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