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On sale: A brand new idea
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Walter Vieira on the changing trends in the sales industry
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On target “The New Sales Manager — Challenges for the 21st Century”
With the retail boom the job of a salesman has undergone a change in more ways than one. We may still not have kids telling their parents they want to grow up to be a salesman, but the taboos attached to the job are fast fading. “It is still
not the first choice but they no longer hide when their relatives come to shop in the department store they are working in. There is respect for the job,” says Walter Vieira, President, Marketing Advisory Services Group and author of “The New Sales Manager — Challenges for the 21st Century”. The second edition of this well-known book by Sage has recently hit the stands.
Metamorphosis
“The companies usually promote outstanding salesmen to a sales manager. My contention is the mental and work profile of a sales manager and a salesman are different. It is like a caterpillar and butterfly. One needs to crawl, the other wants to fly. A salesman is a loner, who wants to work alone and is highly emotional, while for the job of a sales manager, you really need a leader who can manage men rather than sales. In this way the company loses out on the crucial link with the customer. So companies should not change the work profile of an outstanding salesman but should keep on increasing his salaries and perks. The designations could also be changed, like sales consultant, hospital sales specialist, so that he and his family don’t feel left out.” This, he adds, doesn’t mean that a sales manager could do without any idea of how to deal with customers. Sales managers should be adequate salesmen, otherwise they won’t win respect.
No formula
Walter says sales training is not just formulaic, a lot has to do with empathy, which is inherent in a person. “There are two kinds of selling: creative selling and attending selling. In the first one the salesman creates the need, like the medical representatives or door-to-door selling, while in the second a customer comes with a need and the salesman fulfils it. He can create more by offering something free if the customer opts for a bigger size. So in creative selling, most of the time a customer buys something because he believes or likes the salesman. We say first you have to capture heart share, then mind share, followed by market share.”
A con?
Some believe that a salesman’s job is to con, but Walter says those days are gone when selling hair oil to a bald person was considered an achievement for a salesman. “Today such an employee is called a crook. His job is to fulfil the genuine needs and wants of a customer and has to be guided by certain ethics.”
As for the rampant march of consumerism, where a salesman can’t afford to use the goods he handles, Walter says it has to do with the nature of the job. “I also give services to top business heads. Similarly a doctor treats a millionaire.”
ANUJ KUMAR
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