Monday, November 30, 2009

Joeanne's Theory of Sales~

*Figure 1: Joeanne's theory of sales*

A product specialist, as it name suggests, is a person who specializes in his/ her product that he/ she is selling. Every single bit of information from A to Z, from 1-100 must be in our fingertips. Nonetheless, being a product specialist is not merely to know your product well. There are many key players that determine if you are a good sales person or not. As everybody can sell, but not everyone can sell well.

Lets have a look at Figure 1. Say like you are very hardworking. You studied your product in detail until you can memorize everything inside out. But if you have nothing else besides your product knowledge, you are not going anywhere in sales. Because, when you go to the field, your client is not very much interested to know how your product is being manufactured and how they work and their quality, etc. They are more interested in knowing HOW your product can bring benefits to them.

This leads to the second factor in sales. You must know your customer well. First time visit to a client is usually to introduce yourself and also a chance for you to screen his/ her potential in buying your product. Once they are determined as the potential group, then consistent visit is a must, as this is the only way your client will remember you more easily. Then while visiting , try some rapport building, try chit-chat with the significant players, they can be anyone else working around your potential clients, either indirectly or directly. This is the way where you can start gather information, know and understand their needs and problems. Eventually, use different approaches as in HOW you can use your product to specifically address to your client's needs. Because in sales, clients do not buy product, they only buy solution that a product can offers to solve their problem.

For example, say like you buy a notebook today. What is the reason of your purchase? You don't buy the notebook actually, you buy the solution that the notebook offers. They can be functional (for you to write something) or they can be esthetic (a gift to someone else) and etc. So, bu understanding your potential clients' problems, you would be able to approach them better and in fact, they are more willing to spend time to listen to you.

On top of all these, we must have sufficient level of soft skill and general knowledge. This is important especially if you do not know your clients well. General knowledge can be politics, economics, whatsoever that you can read from newspaper and magazine, because they are essential tools for ice breaking between you and your clients.

Always remember that being a sales person, you don't sell your product all the times. In fact, before you can sell, we must get to know our clients first, then use different approaches to win over their hearts.

As illustrated in Figure 1, in the pool of sales person, a lot of them master only one or two factors of selling. The white fragment represents those that stand out of the crowd, as they are people who master all skills in effective selling.

P/S: THE ABOVE IS JUST MY STUPID THEORY AND I JUST KNOW HOW TO SAY ONLY... BAH!!! @@"

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Demand, Supply, and the Forces.

YK said...

wah, no need so much of theory one la, just treat ur customer as human being...LOL

JoeanneWLV said...

Fuyoo~ Thanks for dropping by... Erm, I just know how to say only... @@"

Btw, I will link your blog to mine ya... ^^

shoesbox said...
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