The Ultimate Salesperson
We are all selling something all of the time.
I understand that statement can turn a lot of people off.
Most people have a negative reaction to that sentence. It sounds false, ungenuine, unauthentic. No one is really your friend – they just want something from you; hidden agendas, sideways glances. It sounds terrible.
So let’s turn it around.
One definition of selling is “give or hand over (something) in exchange for money”; a second definition is “to persuade someone of the merits of...” – and THAT is what I mean by we are all selling something all the time.
Last night my husband sold me on watching Children Of The Corn. My son tries to sell me on daily trips to Target or why a bath is a smarter choice over a shower; I sell myself on going to Pilates over yoga, or that another glass of wine is a GOOD idea.
See? We all do it. It’s not a bad thing. This idea that selling or persuading is a bad thing - I don’t buy it.
The vast majority of my career has been in sales. The acquisition and retention of customers for my company’s products and services...yet it is only half the story.
In order to be an amazing brand on the outside, you have to start on the inside first. For a salesperson to be great, they must sell inside first.
Great salespeople take the knowledge of their market, territory, top customers, and bring it all back with them to the design and marketing team.
They help build the future product collections by giving design feedback regarding weather, consumer trends on how they are buying, why something would sell better online than in a store, and if certain products are dying off and others are gaining steam.
The end result of a consistently best selling product does not just happen – it can happen by default, or luck, or amazing timing; but it will not continue to do so without the work from the very beginning.
If design isn’t on board with what sales needs there is trouble. Sales has to communicate what is currently happening in the market and bring quantitative information along with tact to not step all over design’s vision while getting what they need.
Best-Sellers were not born that way and sales always will want a slight update on the current crowd favorite. Sales has to sell design into giving them enough of the meat to make their numbers and design has to sell sales into what they feel will be the next best thing. It’s a delicate dance and when it’s done right the stars align.
Sales works with marketing on calendar for product launches, building seasonal stories and campaigns, identifying what will be best selling products and ensuring it is photographed, marketed, and blasted out to social media at the same time it launches at retail for the perfect strategic sell-through.
Marketing is an essential part of the process. Marketing amplifies the message and brings new customers to the brand. This is the story telling of the brand, the romancing and the brand building. Sales cannot be aloof to what marketing is doing; it is AS important that the story telling is happening when sales meets with their buyer than solely at the consumer level. For sales, the buyer is our first customer – they are voting on the line and picking the products their end consumer will see. Done with no marketing it is just stuff. A brand is just a name, easily interchangeable with whoever else is selling their wares. No marketing and it’s all widgets.
Sales must make sure marketing cares about what they are doing and where they are going – if sales is selling tank tops while marketing has decided to promote bodysuits, there is a disconnect and potential for brand confusion.
In reality, selling is a small part of the overall role of the salesperson. By starting inside and creating the alignments from the start, it also becomes the easiest part of the job.
