01.

The Entertainer

In the seventies Sales Representatives left their caves and set off to hunt their commercial prey armed with little more than a bag full of good stories and bad jokes. Life was so much easier then! If a sales call lasted forty minutes, at least thirty minutes could be devoted to a friendly chat.

Salesmen entertained their customers over a mug of coffee, made them laugh with their predictable but amusing stories, compared sports results, swapped office gossip and left clutching an order… before moving on to the next unsuspecting customer where the same well-rehearsed, entertaining routine was performed all over again.

02.

The Informer

By the eighties, things had progressed a little. Salesmen, now called “Representatives” and “Sales Executives” had evolved and developed good projection and presentation skills to explain the features, advantages and benefits of their products and services.

Clearly the main function of the eighties Sales Executive was to inform – in fact many were regarded as “walking technical handbooks.” Sadly, Sales Executives’ ears did not develop and evolve as well as their tongues. They did not listen, they simply “waited to speak” whilst taking a breath in between sentences. If customers “interrupted” they were swiftly dealt with using a range of questionable, heavy-handed techniques, tricks and gimmicks inspired by books like “How to develop a killer instinct”, “How to get the customer to say yes” and “55 different ways to overcome objections!”

The eighties created dozens of white-suited management gurus. Often sponsored by leading politicians, who had recognised the value of being seen with these new superstars, the gurus filled conference halls and arenas and “enter-trained” Sales Executives and their managers with their misguided and aggressive “Close-that-sale!” philosophies.

Their language was often combative. Sales Executives were told that customer objections were “unjustified” and needed to be “overcome” by following a number of fool-proof steps. They dismissed the possibility that objections might actually be genuine customer concerns that needed to be understood and handled and resolved sensitively.

Customers did not like The Informer’s projection approach. “Selling” became a dirty word conjuring up //images of aggression, manipulation and deceit. Not surprisingly, customers saw themselves as adversaries and “dug in” to defend themselves against verbal attacks. The Informer, however, carried on talking… to an audience of one and a market of none!

03.

The Problem Solver

The last twenty years has seen the development of a much softer, more skilful approach – consultative selling – with an emphasis on problem solving and a full understanding of the customer needs, concerns and aspirations through well-crafted open questions, active listening and summarising skills. Unlike their predecessors, Problem Solvers have shown a genuine interest in the customer’s business.

During the last twenty years many more women have moved into sales and marketing. The female of the species had always been accomplished in these “new” consultative techniques and was naturally able to adopt a more collaborative and less combative style when working with her customers and colleagues. With their empathy, listening skills, intuition, excellent conflict-resolution and relationship-building women used their skills with great effect and left many of their male colleagues wondering (and worrying) about their traditional role in a rapidly changing world.

So here is a summary of this evolutionary story so far – it took over thirty years for the gossiping Entertainer (who liked talking about others) to evolve into the boring Informer (who liked talking about himself) to evolve into the consultative Problem Solver who had finally learned the value of talking to customers about themselves.