Business is all about TRUST

I was reading about how to get people NOT to say maybe in Seth Godin's book, "Small is the new Big." He offers up Susan Storm as the salesperson of the year because she got thrown out of a meeting by using pressure tactics to get the mananger NOT to say maybe. I have enjoyed Seth's book and it has given me a lot to think about, especially when it comes to internet marketing. Reading this section got me thinking about how NOT to conduct yourself in sales.

For a brief moment in my career I had my dream job, account manager. No I wasn't accountant, it is a professional sales title. I loved this time in my life and I worked for a very small family owned company selling in a traditionally male industry. I knew nothing about pipe, pumpjacks, and the oil industry (aside from the invesment part) when I started. I had all of 0 contacts and I started with virtually no database. In nine months I had 1200 entries, approx 800 names of which approx 400 were contacted on the phone and of those approx 200 I had met with personally. I had presented $10 million in quotes and 3 multi million dollar supply proposals. I don't write this to toot my own horn, but so that you'll understand I have been in Susan's shoes. Account Management is about building trusting relationships, a position where forcing a manager to make a decision on the spot does not belong.

The job of the salesperson is to find the lead, get in the door, make a presentation and build "trust" so that there is no inherant risk to saying YES. I realize that Seth Godin was trying to make a point about management and the word "maybe" more then Susan's approach. Susan tried tio force management to make a decision on the spot and ended up breaking the relationship, severing it, and loosing all trust. That hardly qualifys for Sales person of the Year, that's an old school tactic, not a "purple cow." Marketing is not Sales, they are related but not the same. They do however, have one major thing in common, creating trust. Sales is on a more personal one on one level, where marketing is creating trust to the marketplace.

So if I loved my job and I was as good as I say I was why am I not still there? Trust, more like lack thereof. No matter how good you are if your company cannot deliver a quality product, then things will fall apart. The guys I worked with were great guys, things happen and if trust becomes an issue, in sales it's time to go. I did have offers to go to, but I decided to stay home with my kids again. Maybe the wrong decision, maybe the right one. Maybe in the near future I'll be able to pursue my dream job again, until then, I've got Carennedy Solutions.