Do Your Salespersons Educate?

One of the best ways for a salesperson to get my attention is by teaching me something I didn’t know. I love to learn new things. So if a salesperson comes in to my office and starts telling me about something new in the industry, a trend they just found out about, or how someone else was successful with a new ad campaign idea, I’m ready to listen. I think it is part of the salesperson’s job to educate while they impart their ‘sales pitch’.

However, there are two important rules to the ‘teaching’. One is that the ‘lessons’ must be real and factual. I’ve had salespersons tell me ‘facts’ that turned out to be untrue rumors. I don’t want to hear about this type of information. It is not only not helpful to me, but it can cause problems if I believe it only to find out later it was not true. Second, the salesperson must impart their ‘lesson’ in a friendly and helpful manner, never condescending. I don’t appreciate a salesperson telling me something as if I should already know it and imparting the feeling that they are superior for having the knowledge.

Salespersons need to partner with their customers. Become a team that allows the customer to improve in some way. I once had an ad salesman tell me about a great new promotional product he saw in his travels. His telling me about it, did not help in selling his ad (at least not directly), but it helped me find a new product to promote our company. I appreciated his input and realized he did it just to help me out. Another time, I had a salesperson trying to sell me a service that he was promoting at a very attractive price. I told him I would think about it. A few days later I was speaking with another salesperson about a totally unrelated product. I mentioned the service I was thinking about purchasing and the second salesman told me where and how I should further investigate the service before committing to the purchase. I was glad I had, as the service was being phased out everywhere, which I would not have known, (hence the really attractive price).

Successful selling is all about partnering, relationships, and really caring about your customers in all facets of their business, not just what directly affects the products you sell.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at http://www.neminc.com/.