This is article 8 of an 8 part series outlining the 7 professional selling roles of all highly competent salespeople. Roles are extremely important for sellers to understand. Understanding the roles (or “hats”) salespeople should wear leads to higher job satisfaction, lower turnover, and higher sales results.
A “role” is defined as the characteristic and expected social behavior of an individual. We all play many roles in life, such as parents or salespeople, and it’s not hard to see how this sense of the word role it is related to its meaning in the theater, where a “role” was played by a character.
All these factors have a significant negative impact on self-esteem, professional self-image and, consequently, resilience in the face of adversity. In short, without a clear definition of the roles you need to play, the amount of work you need to do, and how these roles intertwine, you can end up like the thousands of other salespeople a year who don’t in the profession. I will now define professional sales roles and what is generally expected of each.
THE SEVEN ROLES OF HIGHLY COMPETENT SELLERS ARE:
- “The Strategic Planner”
- “The customer-focused positioner”
- “The Persuasive Communicator”
- “The Focused Catalyst”
- “The Concerted Facilitator”
- “The Cash Manager”
- “The Value Driven Guardian”
These roles are created by understanding the development phases of customer satisfaction and loyalty (as described by the Association of United Sales Professionals). His model focuses on the entire transaction experience of a buyer, from the identification of initial needs, through decision making, selection and purchase. More importantly, this transaction experience continues past the purchase in implementation, and beyond in measuring the quality and return on investment of the solution.
In this article, I’ll explain the seventh role in more detail (see my other articles for detailed explanations of the other roles).
Main focus of this role:
The main focus of this role is to build internal and external relationships. To achieve this, you will need to build customer trust.
Start here
General expectations:
You must clearly understand when ethical issues arise and counter them accordingly. You must maintain high standards of conduct and moral judgment. You are expected to build relationships where people trust you. Trust will be based on your reputation. Trust will come from your customers’ experience with you over time, from knowing that what you say is true and in the best interest of your business. You must work diligently to earn that trust. Since this is the case, this person trusts you to help them achieve their goals. So, from an ethical perspective, establishing trust between you and your client precludes any form of dishonesty, even those seemingly harmless “white lies” used to save face or avoid embarrassing or embarrassing situations.
You will build your credibility through your performance. To do this, you will need to possess and display a belief in your company, your products, and the way you do business. It means having a deep understanding of your products and their applications and showing a willingness to learn about your customers and their unique problems and needs. Credibility comes from a track record of success and the ability to apply lessons learned. It is the heart of true professionalism. Like trust, it will take time to build credibility and will depend heavily on your professional reputation.
it will be expected that “protect” and “expand” in three main areas (yourself, your company and your accounts):
protect yourself
Ethical Code of Conduct (the only global code of ethics for salespeople is governed by the United Professional Sales Association). While it is not practical or possible to establish written ethical requirements that apply to all situations and circumstances, you must internalize a code of conduct based on your values. You should understand that both the objectives and fundamental principles of a Code of Ethics (such as the United Professional Sales Association Code of Ethics) are general in nature. You should not use the code of ethics to resolve an ethical problem in specific cases where you should seek legal advice. You must consider the principles established in the Code of Ethics as the basic principles that you must follow in the performance of your work.
You need to understand that buyers and teammates are human beings with many different roles. People can play a role as a shopper, coach, father, mother, husband or wife, leader, supporter, church leader, student, and volunteer. Each of these roles fights for attention within a buyer at different times. In today’s world, you also need to be able to understand the global implications of “selling.” In this environment, you must weigh the cultural, gender, and international ramifications of doing business because value judgments and laws vary widely by gender, culture, and country.
You must also identify the personal social support you need to maintain a happy and healthy lifestyle. You should always guard against a harmful perspective or attitude towards yourself and others. You need to make sure you’ve taken a proper inventory of your personal values and how they relate to your selling strengths and weaknesses so you don’t get yourself into awkward situations.
You must never defame another business by making unfair or false statements to customers about a competitor, its product, its financial situation, its business practices, or its vendors. You should never seek reciprocity or another special relationship in which two companies agree to purchase products from each other, and you should avoid “binding agreements” in which a buyer is required to buy one product in order to obtain another product. It must protect against collusion (an agreement between competitors before customers are contacted) as well as collusion (competitors working together while the customer makes a buying decision).
Protect your company
In this role, you must have an intelligent legal understanding of the applicable laws and regulations that apply. You should ensure that your business is never accused of trying to get a customer to breach a contract with a competitor, tampering with a competitor’s product, confusing a competitor’s market research when purchasing merchandise in stores, or offering special prices, discounts, or services. unjustified prices to some customers and not to others (price discrimination).
You also need to guard against “bad” deals, where the customer relationship would be detrimental to the company (such as selling something undeliverable). You must adequately and professionally represent your company’s brand and reputation. You must also ensure that you protect the company’s intellectual property by properly managing its communications and physical assets.
Protect your accounts
You must work diligently to maintain the accounts you have because it is much more expensive and time consuming to find a new customer. You need to build relationships through trust and credibility to ensure you don’t lose customers to the competition without a fair chance to provide a contrary recommendation.
You must ensure that any specific statements about the performance of your product are accurate and not misleading. You must ensure that any specific positive performance statements can be supported by evidence. You must also remind customers to pay attention to warnings and operating instructions, as well as warn customers about how the product should be used if they are thinking of using the product’s applications inappropriately. You must determine the experience and knowledge of a new client and make recommendations to ensure they achieve the expected result.
expand
You must continually improve yourself and your customers through learning, reading new books, staying on top of new trends, and generally increasing your knowledge of the business, the buyer, your solution, and yourself. You should try to keep an unbiased view of the current state. You should watch for a bias against the change. You must expand in relation to what you were before, what you are now and what you want to become.
Expand your company
You should strive to capture key information your leadership team might need to proactively respond to issues before they escalate into crises. If appropriate, you should offer constructive criticism of policies and procedures that could be detrimental to the role of guardian. You should look to offer fresh insights into efficiency, positioning, processes, reporting, and team building. You should offer feedback from your customers to your organization on new product ideas. You must volunteer and “give back” to the selling profession, such as volunteering in the community or with a seller’s trade association.
Expand your accounts
You need to find creative strategies to expand your checking account relationships (ie, offer a higher quantity for a slightly higher price). You need to find ways to promote “add-on” items (ie, how to promote accessories for electrical items, such as batteries, tapes, and cases). You may want to offer related products or a premium product. In addition to expanding the business relationship, you may want to expand customer insight by providing important information from third-party sources (ie, newspapers and magazines).
Required traits of this role:
Empathy is defined as the salesperson’s ability to engage with customers effectively. An example of empathy is when a salesperson who makes a lot of money sells insurance to less fortunate people. If the closer understands that the customer can only afford basic necessities, he is more likely to make the sale by not putting pressure on the customer to buy something he can’t afford. In other words, being able to understand the client’s financial situation. Empathy is the guiding mechanism that allows the salesperson to follow the prospect through quibbles and objections until the prospect’s real needs are addressed and the sale is closed.