Who are Professional Sellers? (Part One)
Capacity Development in Sales Professionals:
In the current economic conditions of our country, it is
imperative to help the youth in identifying employment opportunities. To
accomplish this, they need to pay attention to their personal skills set, both
technical and soft skills. In fact Pakistanis can achieve their coveted
economic prosperity, only if the vast majority is highly skilled, sooner than
later (for motivation, the Pakistanis should take stock of the current GDP growth
of Bangladesh!)
The youth should be conducting the ‘Opportunity Scan’,
i.e. comparing their personal skills set with the variety of opportunities around
them, rather than seeking jobs while they are mercilessly rendered as ‘below
par’ by those handling the gadgets of HR analytics nowadays.
In Pakistani agriculture-based economy, Sales opportunities can still provide employment to the vast majority
of our youth, from different socioeconomic classes across Pakistan. Sales can be built into a career, offering not only the capacity &
skills development (at companies' expense) but can also equip them with necessary skills to be utilized in the modern sphere of digital marketing and e-commerce.
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| Credit: Pakistan Today |
Shortage of ‘Real’ Sales Experts:
Ask a higher executive in a company about the skills of our youth in sales, and they will offer you a plethora of reasons for the paucity of people
with real sales metal. They show their dismay for making compromises on desired job descriptions, while
recruiting and on-boarding the resource available at hand.
Firstly,
those with tertiary education in Marketing (but without any actual experience in the market) have the wrong self-assumption of
being an “expert” in sales.
Scoring
high GPA and acquiring high volume sales revenues are entirely different ball
games.
Unfortunately, most of them employed in ‘Sales' Management, only desire to perform research and strategic marketing functions in their “cool”
offices, but are disgruntled when are asked for pure ‘toil & targets’ of
sales production in the four seasons of markets in our country. If universities make it compulsory for the business students
to spend internship time in pure sales activities, and afterwards there is at
least one-year apprenticeship in sales operations, these business/marketing graduates
can really help developing the businesses.
Secondly, thousands of individuals among sales
professionals across Pakistan did not have resources and opportunities for
university qualifications in business. However, the job opportunities in sales in
Pakistan – especially for those who were lucky to get the right working conditions
(Three Dimensional Coordination) – have helped these thousands of individuals to
earn a decent livelihood.
Vital Skills for Sales Success in our Markets:
Either you are a business (esp. marketing) graduate
or not, to excel in sales careers the right working conditions will be helpful
only when you consciously work on the following traits:
1. Spare the Process and Spoil the Seller:
Just like any other profession, you need to focus on the “sales process”.
If you are not familiar and do not have command on each and every step of sales
process, it’s bound to disappoint you in one way or other. Unfortunately, the
capacity development in sales is affected either by unwillingness of learners to
learn or half-baked effort of their developers to equip the learners.
The easiest
“way out” has been to mesmerize the new-comers with the lucrative
incentives, so that the individuals get the desired “targets” usually by hard
selling. Soon these new sellers are either disgruntled by accusations of swindling the buyers, or dissuaded by the notoriety of
various local versions of Ponzi schemes.
The newcomers in sales can ensure success, mainly by continuously & consciously learning and performing their best at every step
of sales process. Following aspects of market research are the foundations of handling sales steps:
a. Understanding the
types of consumers/buyers in your given market; their problems; and how the unique
aspects of your products can solve those problems.
b. Practical command
on the use of “Attention-Loop” to display your professional intent &
sincerity to serve your niche.
c. The ability to
instill belief among your buyers that they have been getting the best possible
value for the money they have paid.
Just reviewing these aspects can enable you to very soon
have command and focus on the process, the positive outcomes are then just a
matter of time.
(CONTINUED)
