Why This Kolaveri Di – Love The Sales Man

How many of us welcome a salesman with a smile or for that matter love or wait for the sales/ marketing calls on our mobile phones? I am sure there wouldn’t be a single person who do that. sales and marketing people are the most detestable species of mankind. But no business would ever sustain without them. A firm may make the best of best products, but if they don’t sell, what is the point? Ultimately it’s the bottom line that speaks for any firm.

So don’t mind if I call them backbone of a firm.

On a serious note salesmanship is just personal selling- negotiating, emphasizing, inducing and making the prospective buyer take a decision in favour of the product being offered to him.

Here is an anecdote to explain the above :

An Indian moves to Montreal and goes to a big department stores looking for a job. The manager asks, “Do you have any sales experience.” The Indian replies, “yeah I was a salesman back home“. Well, the manger liked the salesman, so he gave him a job. “You start tomorrow. I will come down after we close and see how you did, but let me give you a bit of of advice. If a customer comes looking, say, for toothpaste, you might suggest for him a tooth brush, or shaving cream etc. You get the idea?“. “Of course” , the young man said. The first day on the job was rough but he got through it. After the store was locked up, the manager came down. “How many customers did you serve today” the Indian says, “One” . The manager groans, “just one? Our sales people serve an average of 20-30 per day. How much was the sale for ? The Indian says, “$101237.64″. The manager exclaims, “what $101237.64 ? what did you sell him?” The Indian replied “first I sold him a small fish hook. Then I Sold him a medium fish hook. Then I sold him a new fishing rod then I asked him where he was going fishing, and he said down at the coast so I told him that he was going to need a boat so we went down to the Boat department, then I sold him the twin engine chris craft. Then he said he did not think that his Honda Civic would pull it, so I took him down to the automotive department and sold him that 4X4 Pajero”. The manager says you mean the guy came here to buy a fish hook and yo sold him boat and a truck ?

A true Salesman Indeed.

Though we don’t like this specie of Gods creations, do we ever realize that most of the time we do what they do ? Just the difference being they sell products/ services for a firm whereas we sell ideas/ beliefs and thoughts for ourselves.