The Motivations of Sales
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@Dashrender said in The Motivations of Sales:
@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
@Dashrender said in The Motivations of Sales:
@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
Maybe I have to state this implicitly because I think this is missed.... all employees are salespeople of their own services. All. Every person who has an IT job has it because they sold their "private consulting services" to their employer. Everyone does sales sometimes.
Sure, but once you accepted the job don't you sales skills get put away? Because now you job is to work in the best interest of the company
Not if you are smart! You sell your skills, your value, your potential every day. Some days are less than others. But you do it every time you want a raise or, really, every day you don't want to get fired.
That's not sales, that's being ethical. You're using they skills they pay you for.
Not using them would be unethical, according to you.Selling is ethical, not sales?
Are you sure? You think that they are paying you to sell yourself to them?
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I think it is very important for both parties to have a clear understanding of their obligations in a sales situation. Ultimately the buyer is in the position of power, and as a decision maker, they have a responsibility to themselves, or their organizations to do their due diligence. You’d be surprised at how often this is not the case and the buyer is actually dissatisfied when expected to understand their own needs. Salespeople without integrity aside, this mentality is what leaves people open to exploitation. It gets complicated when a buyer doesn’t properly understand their own needs and it’s left up to the seller to act on behalf of both parties. Obviously, they won’t want to leave food on the table.
Similarly, the salesperson has their own responsibilities. Obviously, they exist to generate cash flow but they must ask themselves if their sales process adds any value to the customer. A good salesperson has a duty to ask the right questions and fully understand the needs of their prospects. If they don’t align properly with your needs, then it should be no surprise that they didn’t close the sale.
As a buyer, it’s important to note that meeting needs is only an obligation of sales if it encourages sales. If more sales are made by selling what the customer does not need, salespeople are obligated to let the customer buy. At the end of the day, it’s entirely up to the customer to determine what their need is, and one could define the agreement of a sale meeting their need by the fact that they completed the sale.
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@RestoronixSean said in The Motivations of Sales:
I think it is very important for both parties to have a clear understanding of their obligations in a sales situation. Ultimately the buyer is in the position of power, and as a decision maker...
This is huge. Only the buyer chooses to engage sales or to complete a sale. Sales people never have this power, by definition. But most of the feelings of ethics are projected on them through the belief that somehow sales are determined by the salesperson rather than the buyer. Ultimately, if ethics are violated in the process (without breaking into lying, deception, etc.) those ethics must fall on the buyer because the sales person's stance is so clear.
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Great example that just happened: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2010974-delete
It's really clear that the CIO oversold himself to management. And for some reason (we can guess at the insanely obvious reasons) he lets sales people tell him what to tell the CEO. Who is unethical?
No question, the CIO is. He's the buyer's agent not doing his job. The sales people, we can pretty safely assume, are just doing sales. But the CIO, ultimately responsible for making sure that ridiculous sales ideas don't get taken seriously, didn't just take them seriously but made them "law".
There is only one party responsible for protecting the company, the CIO. He's the one that didn't do his job. Sure, everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but this is beyond a "mistake" and when it was pointed out how massive and obvious a blunder this was, it was attempted to be covered up rather than fixed.
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@RestoronixSean said
A good salesperson has a duty to ask the right questions and fully understand the needs of their prospects. If they don’t align properly with your needs, then it should be no surprise that they didn’t close the sale.
Right, and by selling them only what they need.
As a buyer, it’s important to note that meeting needs is only an obligation of sales if it encourages sales. If more sales are made by selling what the customer does not need, salespeople are obligated to let the customer buy.
How would this come up unless the sales person in unethically telling the client they need more than they really do?
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
@RestoronixSean said
A good salesperson has a duty to ask the right questions and fully understand the needs of their prospects. If they don’t align properly with your needs, then it should be no surprise that they didn’t close the sale.
Right, and by selling them only what they need.
No, that's completely false. It is absolutely NOT their obligation, job or even slightly something that they are supposed to do. There is zero reason to even think that they have the ability to know that.
Only one person every has an ethical obligation there.. the buyer. Any sales of something unneeded is the buyer buying more than they needed. The seller cannot make that decision.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
How would this come up unless the sales person in unethically telling the client they need more than they really do?
You don't understand what's ethical here. The sales person exists for the sole purpose of selling more than is needed. That's not just not unethical, it is their ethical obligation to their employer and one that you agree to in the social contract when you engage with a sales person.
This what I've been trying to explain. The ONLY one that can be unethical here without lying, is the buyer whose task is to protect the company, not the seller whose job is to protect the seller.
For the sales person to be unethical would require them to look after the needs of the buyer, rather than the seller. You have what is ethical actually flipped.
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@RestoronixSean said...
Similarly, the salesperson has their own responsibilities. A good salesperson has a duty to ask the right questions and fully understand the needs of their prospects. If they don’t align properly with your needs, then it should be no surprise that they didn’t close the sale. -
But I am saying I make recommendations and do NOT do that. I am NOT trying to oversell. That's not my life goal.
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One could make a pretty strong argument that it is unethical to expect a salesperson to act against his ethical obligations. The very idea that a salesperson should be expected to behave against what his job is to do is really inappropriate at best.
There is a party whose job it is to do that. Expecting the sales person do to that job for the buyer implies that the buyer is trying to get out of their ethical obligations.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
@RestoronixSean said...
Similarly, the salesperson has their own responsibilities. A good salesperson has a duty to ask the right questions and fully understand the needs of their prospects. If they don’t align properly with your needs, then it should be no surprise that they didn’t close the sale.Yes, because understanding that makes sales easier.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
But I am saying I make recommendations and do NOT do that. I am NOT trying to oversell. That's not my life goal.
Then you are acting either against your obligations as a sales person or against rationality. Because being a salesperson that does not oversell is kind of crazy. You are adding a sales process without adding value to anyone.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
But I am saying I make recommendations and do NOT do that.
Then why sell at all? And what does your personal motivation really have to do with it? Are you a paid salesperson? Are you absolutely sure that you've never once, ever been motivated by profit? How do you explain taking the time to become a reseller if there is not profit motivation? This just doesn't make sense.
Bottom line, people get into sales to sell. If you are intentionally getting into sales but don't want to sell... we are just dealing with irrationality, right?
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
But I am saying I make recommendations and do NOT do that.
Do you get paid for those recommendations? How do people find out that you give recommendations?
Just because you are qualified to give recommendations, why do you feel that all sales people are? I feel like you are projecting a sense of "I'm a consultant that does sales" and putting your consulting hat onto your sales persona and projecting your consulting onto all sales people.
Do you think that the girl telling you that they have a deal on french fries and McD's is a "fry consultant" that consults on your dietary needs out of the goodness of her heart? She's 1) not a dietary consultant 2) not trained 3) knows nothing about you 4) sells a predictable thing regardless of who the customer is.
The idea that you feel that she is ethical required to be a food consultant with unlimited skill and knowledge and to apply that, without being paid, to work against the interests of her and her employer makes literally no sense. There is no ethical or logical reason for it to work that way.
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So what if the fry girl says ... oh by the way, instead of paying $3.49 for that fry you can get 2 for $4 which is a much better deal.
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What is really important, I think, is not just understanding that sales people are not consultants and have zero obligation to act as consultants (beyond the fact that logically they cannot) but that it is unfair and unethical to attempt to shove those obligations onto them.
Imagine if you did this to other people in life. What if you suddenly felt your priest was unethical for not changing your car's oil. What if you felt your neighbor was unethical for not mowing YOUR lawn. What if you felt the cashier at the grocery store was unethical for not hosting a dinner party and inviting you. Or if your cousin didn't come cook dinner for you every night.
Random obligations shoved on people for whom there is no reason, capability or ethics is totally unfair. It's not just asking for something extreme, it is essentially asking the impossible.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
So what if the fry girl says ... oh by the way, instead of paying $3.49 for that fry you can get 2 for $4 which is a much better deal.
In your world, she'd be unethical because she didn't research if you needed more fries, if you like fries, if you have someone to share them with, how the extra $.51 would impact your personal finances, etc.
In my world, she's just a sales girl doing her job in the 100% ethical, social contract way. She didn't lie, she didn't force, she didn't deceive. She did sales.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
So what if the fry girl says ... oh by the way, instead of paying $3.49 for that fry you can get 2 for $4 which is a much better deal.
In your world, she'd be unethical because she didn't research if you needed more fries, if you like fries, if you have someone to share them with, how the extra $.51 would impact your personal finances, etc.
In my world, she's just a sales girl doing her job in the 100% ethical, social contract way. She didn't lie, she didn't force, she didn't deceive. She did sales.
In my world, she is AWESOME because she just helped me get more fries for a great price.
Seriously. I'd leave her a tip for something like that.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
@RestoronixSean said
A good salesperson has a duty to ask the right questions and fully understand the needs of their prospects. If they don’t align properly with your needs, then it should be no surprise that they didn’t close the sale.
Right, and by selling them only what they need.
As a buyer, it’s important to note that meeting needs is only an obligation of sales if it encourages sales. If more sales are made by selling what the customer does not need, salespeople are obligated to let the customer buy.
How would this come up unless the sales person in unethically telling the client they need more than they really do?
I've actually had the discussion with salespeople in the past that their best customers have been other salespeople who understand the relationship, and the importance of clearly articulating their needs. They tend to get straight down to business. It simply saves time when the needs have been clearly defined. I’m not implying that one should try and intentionally screw someone over but ultimately it is up to the buyer to draw the line. If at the end of the transaction you feel a salesperson has overstepped or is pushing far past the needs without integrity then you might want to consider taking your business elsewhere. Salespeople should definitely be mindful, and customer centric, but you can’t put the buyers responsibility on them.
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@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
@scottalanmiller said in The Motivations of Sales:
@BRRABill said in The Motivations of Sales:
So what if the fry girl says ... oh by the way, instead of paying $3.49 for that fry you can get 2 for $4 which is a much better deal.
In your world, she'd be unethical because she didn't research if you needed more fries, if you like fries, if you have someone to share them with, how the extra $.51 would impact your personal finances, etc.
In my world, she's just a sales girl doing her job in the 100% ethical, social contract way. She didn't lie, she didn't force, she didn't deceive. She did sales.
In my world, she is AWESOME because she just helped me get more fries for a great price.
Seriously. I'd leave her a tip for something like that.
But she didn't do what you feel is required of a sales person. She upsild you when you didn't need it. That's like your storage vendor overselling you capacity. Sure that extra 20TB didn't do you any good. It just wasted your money. But it might feel good after the sale anyway.
