I Got the Sale
Posted by: Cheryl Clausen in sales coaching, tags: getting clients, sales coaching, Selling your servicesCongress reminded me this Sunday of a fateful behavior pattern that can cost you, the business owner your business in short order.
As you probably know this Sunday the democratically controlled House of Representatives pressured, manipulated, and used every trick in the book… and some that probably weren’t even in the book, to ram unpopular legislation the voters do not want through. Even though all Americans want health reform only a tiny percentage of Americans wanted health reform the way it was put together in this legislation.
Congress is jubilant they got the legislation through; however, they may not be as jubilant about what they also get as a result of their current behaviors.
Many sales people make this same fateful mistake in their behaviors. They don’t care how they have to manipulate a buyer. They don’t care if they have to lie to get the sale. All they care about is getting the sale.
Sales people who behave this way will even boast about how they were able to badger a buyer into buyer. They laugh at their buyers behind their backs, call them rubes, and treat buyers with utter disdain.
To sales people and politicians who choose to behave like this I say yuck it up because massive failure is in your future.
Yes, you got what you wanted today. However, when sales people act that way they won’t get referrals and they won’t get repeat business. They don’t just damage their credibility they damage the credibility of the company they represent.
The politicians might get voted out of office. The sales person might starve out or get fired. It’s the buyer who really suffers.
The buyer is the one who has to live with the long-term consequences of their purchase or the legislation. The buyer is the one who is permanently damaged. The buyer who is already skeptical of politicians and sales people has yet one more reason to never trust them.
As the business owner you have to realize it is never about the one time sale and always about the relationships you establish and the trust you build. Relationships and trust are what will fill your bank account, not just today but everyday for the life of your business. If your sales people are not emulating those values and practicing them in their behaviors you are better off firing them today, before they do even more damage, than you are looking the other way while they ring your cash register today.
Rather than celebrating getting the sale celebrate the way you got the sale.
Coach Cheryl
photo credit: Speaker Pelosi
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March 23rd, 2010 at 11:40 am
Cheryl - Well written and well said.
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:13 pm
[…] was reminded of this syndrome when reading Cheryl Claussen’s posting this morning. Cheryl identified a great connection between sales behaviors and the recent […]