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It’s unethical. It’s immoral at times. But if you want to be the best salesperson around just lie to people. Stretch the truth, “you look great in that shirt!”, “You definitely need the F-350!”, “You should go with the full rebrand package, it’ll be the best for your company!”
Lying to people may help you make a sale but you’re ruining a future relationship. People don’t forget.
There was a story of Patagonia, the retailer. They are known for being kind to the earth, their customers, and employees. I heard a story about an all-star salesperson. She was easily making her budgets sometimes setting records in the company for sales. So much success that the CEO had to go see how this person was doing such a bang-up job!
The CEO goes to the store to congratulate the employee, but instead instantly fires her on the spot. He had just witnessed this “all-star” employee lie to a customer so that they would buy a jacket. The CEO explained in a heartfelt email that Patagonia doesn’t want to simply just sell products, they help people what whatever it is they need. Over-selling to someone is a great way to lose a customer forever.
The problem is people trust you, when you’re in a position of power (yes any salesperson is in a position of power) people look up to you, they assume you have their best interests in mind. When you take someone’s trust and use it to increase your sales, you will lose. Maybe not immediately, but in the long run you can’t keep finding new people to sell to, you’ll run out of repeat customers and won’t understand why.
You’ll blame marketing or sales. You’ll put more pressure on your salespeople, they won’t like that, they either get sleazier and “make a sale at any cost” or they quit. Both terrible options for the long-term viability of your company. Every time someone leaves, they tell more people about what you’re doing. It’s easy to blame marketing or sales for business strategy problems. Maybe it’s time you took your team off commission based pay, it’s ruining relationships.
I still think the worst people are the people who lie to you to help themselves out. The worst. Putting money before people is wrong.
No one likes “selling”. I mean they probably LOVE the money from it but c’mon, convincing people to buy your wares? What is this? 1933? No one wants to buy from you. We want to be entertained, we want our friends to tell us about you, we want to fall in love what you do.
That’s hard, any new strategy in 2017 will be, but as long as your strategy is difficult you’re on the right track. Stop trying for the “easy sell”. The low hanging fruit exists in every industry, don’t fall for that, do what’s hard.
Go for the long sale. Don’t over sell. Remember, everyone has a much better memory now that you share on Instagram every day.
It’s hard to forget when someone uses and abuses us and our wallets. If you do it, or work for a company that does it, be prepared for people to never hire you ever again. I remember people from 10 years ago that made a sale, not caring about the consumer (me), you just remember the feeling you got after. It’s very unpleasant.
You don’t need to make that extra recommendation. You don’t need to oversell to everyone, McDonald’s does that, you don’t need to.
You be really, really, good. Give people a reason to hire you. Show the value in what you bring to the table and believe in yourself. Word-of-mouth has been and always will be the most powerful form of marketing, use it to your advantage.
Caring about your people, helping other organizations in your community, doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. This is the new competitive advantage. Leopold’s and Victorias group in Regina, every year in December give away thousands of dollars to charities in the communities they operate. Victoria’s alone gave away $12,000 last year at Christmas time. When you have a choice of when to eat or drink it hard not to at least consider going to Leo’s or Vic’s because you probably know someone who was affected by the give-a-ways. I know I was.
Thank you @theunderstandus for doing what you do in our community! We are happy to support you!
A post shared by Leopold’s Tavern (@leopoldstavern) on
A post shared by Victoria’sTavern (@vicstavern) on
Both Leopold’s and Victoria’s had to do something different this past December, so why not try help in the fight against drinking and driving? Yup, offered free rides during the month of December is what they did! These are pubs that serve food and all they do for marketing is try to be “a good corporate citizen” is what business school called it, I call it the new cool! Because caring about your community is the new cool.
A post shared by Leopold’s Tavern (@leopoldstavern) on
Hardpressed coming into the Queen city to sell their wares!? How do they get away with it? They are a Saskatoon company and people from Regina simply LOVE their clothing. Why? Yes it’s very comfy, yes it’s very stylish, but last year Hardpressed donated $8,000 to Carmichael Outreach after one of their pop-up sales. Do you want me to love you forever? Support the Non-profits that mean a lot to me. Hardpressed, Leopold’s and Victoria’s have done just that.
I’ll support these to organizations because at their very core, they believe in doing the right thing as a part of their business model. That’s something I can get behind.
If all you’re doing is sharing selfies, you’re doing it wrong.
If all you do is share quotes, you’re doing it wrong.
If all you do is share vacation photos, you’re doing it wrong.
If all you do is post cat photos, you’re getting closer but you’re still doing it wrong.
We discovered these as a team during a Learning Friday with Eddy, there are so many quick keys that can make your life easier in Photoshop. Yes you don’t need to be a professional designer to be able to use Photoshop, I think it should be taught in school. Being able to manipulate an image is powerful. To be able to do it in a way where people can’t tell you did it?! That’s well what Eddy does!
It’s amazing what you can do in Photoshop, learn it, practice it, create something amazing! Oh and I know that title is a little aggressive, if we’ve missed some of if you don’t believe this list is right please add to it in the comments below!
If you want me to buy something the last way to do that is by trying to sell it to me. What you need to do is pitch me your why.
I still remember the Tweet. It was from Kayla Kozan, she said “Someone trying to sell you a watch is probably a watch sales-person.” Meaning, if someone is trying to get you to buy something you should simply say no because they obviously have an interest in you buying it from them.
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I’ve only known Maple for a few years, but in that time she’s taught me a life time of lessons on how to treat people. We used to work up above Coda Clothing and shoes. Maple would be working on the floor of Coda when we’d come into work. We’d have to walk past her as we shared an entrance. She was always excited to see us no matter what. She genuinely wanted to get to know you better, it wasn’t fake or contrived, Maple is actually one of the happiest people I’ve ever met. She could keep a conversation going with a mute person! Read more
T-shirt marketing has been around for years. I’m not sure who started it, probably someone who loved making people smile. Any way, what we wear has changed so much over the years. Clothing can affect the way you think(peoples’ perception of you changes), from the psychology of social signalling and Status Anxiety, to understanding that most of what we do is centred around attracting the opposite sex (see the book Spent for a fascinating look into this theory).
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