Sales Make it Happen

Perception and Reality

A well respected, Pulitzer Prize winning sports columnist for a major metropolitan U. S. newspaper once wrote, "The best coaches are always great salesmen because they have to convince players that they're the ones who can do the job for the team. For a salesman, the line between the truth and falsehood is often blurred; what sells the product is the most important. The best salesmen are those who truly believe what they're saying, whether or not it's true." Worse, this journalist declared, "Lying comes naturally to a good salesman."

Unfortunately, too many people think of the salesman as Willie Loman and Sammy Glick - shallow but smooth, manipulative, gifted gabbers who work to persuade at almost any cost. If you are a salesperson, a sales manager, or a senior executive responsible for the performance of a sales team, you must be asking yourself, what can be done to change this perception?

The answer is deceptively easy to see, and extraordinarily difficult to implement. First, the answer: In those instances where a salesperson puts the interests of the customer ahead of everything else, the salesperson is usually held in high regard by the customer. Some years ago I became aware of an HP salesman who, when talking with a customer about a purchase, took out a competitor's catalog and recommended a more appropriate item for his customer than HP offered. True, the salesman lost the order, and the commission on the sale, but he gained the loyalty of a customer for a very long time and, not surprisingly, did a large volume of business with that customer in the future.

Implementing a true customer-first attitude is difficult, for salespeople, for sales managers and for senior executives. In a world where short-term gains and performance are rewarded almost to the exclusion of everything else, the pressure to sell, to earn commissions, and to put the company's interests ahead of customers' interests, is enormous. As long as this continues, it is not likely that the overall negative perception of the salesman, and saleswoman, will change. If, on the other hand, some enlightened salespeople, sales managers and senior executives cultivate a company culture that truly champions the interests of its customers, those professionals and their companies will not only prosper, but they will play a significant role in changing the perception of the salesmen and saleswomen held by their customers and, perhaps, others.

--- from the desk of a retired, successful leasing company president.