Selling...

This fell out of a comment stream on another MW post, and it occured to me that it might make good copy and provoke discussion.

I had been working as a design engineer and I was getting very bored and luckily I was laid off. I had long thought of starting my own business, but I thought I couldn't sell. The redundancy money gave me three months cover on my expenses so I needed to do something fairly quickly. I was given two chief opportunities; one was in finacial services, the other in home improvements, with Everest. To cut a long story short I joined Everest as a self employed sales agent - a 'rep' to you and me.

At the time in the early 80's the companies sales 'system' was to make 200 cold call contacts per week, this would translate into about 20 or so 'appointments', of which you would actually present to 10 and close three. Everest had built itelf into the premier double glazing outfit using this system so who was I to argue? So I set to on their system.

In addition to the system, Everest ran local sales training meetings twice a week. Now, don't think that these were the archetypal hooray gee up sessions, they were not. They were much more sohisticated involving lots of role play, attitude training, work rate training; self discipline and so forth. My assessment at the time and looking back is that (at that time Everest) was one of the best organised most disciplined companies that I have ever worked for.

The competition both within the company and outside from other outfits was fierce. Very quickly I realised that many reps (again both inside and outside the company) were just lazy and liars. Being neither of those I worked on being hard working and truthful. Sure you lose the occasional deal to the bullshitters, but the deals you make tend to be bigger, and to generate more customer loyalty (lots of referrals and repeat business) and less cancellations.

Good selling - and we all do it - is founded on truth and hardwork. Good reps will never be the 'stars', they'll be the ones that do the numbers year in year out. And this brings me to the 'stars'.

If you have any experience you'll know that super-reps are a pain in the arse. They use their charisma to quickly close lots of deals, but generally have zero follow through and are adminstratively chaotic; except in their skill at claiming expenses. The business they generate is often 'bought' - that is it has been heavily discounted and may not even conform to the firms product standards. These super-reps are very clever at sticking around just long enough to get all their commissions before the cancellations or other problems surface. They then go to the next outfit they can charm into taking them on. Lastly, it is my experience that the truth is not in them.

One of the best of these I have seen in action was a certain T. Blair. My judgement of him was that he was simply a super-rep that got lucky.