Have you ever wondered what types of customers are attracted by certain types of salespeople?
Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to visit hundreds of companies and dig deep into their business.
Without a doubt, I can say the reason some companies wind up with more bad customers than others is because they have more bad salespeople than others.
This is not a proclamation that if you don’t have any bad customers it means you have only good salespeople.
No, bad customers can pop up anywhere, but if a company has more than its share of bad salespeople, they’ll have a whole lot more bad customers.
Reason I say this is bad salespeople are typically bad because they don’t have a good sales process. When you don’t have a good sales process, you wind up focusing on two things: features and price.
When you wind up focusing on those two things, the customers you do by chance happen to wind up with are those who are buying based on price and not on the value of what the product or service can bring them.
Customers who are attracted solely due to price or features are ones who leave quickly should they be offered a lower price elsewhere.
Worse than leaving is they stay and create a giant hassle for everyone because of their demands and expectations. If they don’t understand the benefit proposition when buying the first time, who is to say they’re going to figure it out after they buy? They won’t — which means they are going to make any number of assumptions about what the product or service should do, and anything less than that is going to cause them to contact you.
This is why I will say without hesitation the damage a bad salesperson can do to a company goes way beyond just losing a lot of sales they can’t close.
It means many times for those sales they do close, the level of profit the company is going to make is going to be less due to the on-going hassles the customer is most likely going to create for you.
Copyright 2012, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
2 Responses
Very nice article. My company sells roofs door to door. Certain sales reps always find the problem customers, other reps only bring in customers that are happy, grateful for or service, and easy to work with.
Over 30 years with national home builders, I’ve experienced many examples of what you’re referring to. Builders often think that the homes, amenities and improvements are the community that is being built, when the community is actually the people who chose to live there. Sales people who care to build quality relationships tend to build better communities of people.
I’ve had the pleasure of developing 1300 home communities where all the key builder representatives were on sight from start to finish. The focus was always on building relationships and nurturing trust from the first encounter with our guests to the close out of the community. There was nothing more gratifying than walking around the community and interacting with people who were thoroughly satisfied and grateful. Much of that came from the relationship building and expectation setting that was done at the time of sale. It was the product of having well refined processes, excellent people, and a culture where virtually every interaction with the customer was a positive one.