By John Carroll
Carroll on Work

It’s unanticipated among those new to professional selling, and it’s rarely listed on the job description of a sales position. It’s often welcomed with less than enthusiastic feedback.

The “it” is the role of a sales professional to sell not only to prospects, customers and clients but also to his or her boss, team and company.

The sales role is, by nature, on the front lines of an organization. Even if the sales force is tied to desks and handles all sales and orders via computer, fax and phone, this is still a role that can have the greatest prospect/customer/client contact. You may hold the key to your own company’s development of new products and services in anticipation of customer needs and desires.

Let’s say that you’re selling for an industrial products distribution company that buys and resells products to businesses. You have the responsibility to keep your customers buying from you and to find new customers who will buy from your company. As you are engaged in a sales and service relationship with the customer, you’re often the first to hear complaints, suggestions, questions and whatever else is on the customer’s mind. Your true role includes carrying this valuable customer and market information back to your company and communicating it to the relevant parties.

If you don’t ask about and listen closely, how will you and your company know what’s really going on in the marketplace? If you don’t know, how will you know how to respond to market changes, increased regulatory pressures and a change in competitive tactics? For example, if you wait until you have a significant, open invoice to learn that your customer is struggling with his or her receivables or cash position, you may put your company in a difficult position to continue to sell to your customer.

Your company is counting on you to focus on your customer and keep up with both your customers and how market forces affect those customers. Further, you should want to know many of these valuable pieces of information yourself so that you know what and how to sell to your customers.

Depending upon your relationship with your customer, you should be able to ask questions that others wouldn’t dare. By showing your commitment and dedication to your customer’s best interests over the long haul, you may have access to more valuable insight than you thought. In many cases you simply have to ask.

Make sure that the knowledge and information you gain remains at the level of confidentiality the customer would prefer. If something is for your ears only and represents no harmful effect to your company, respect those wishes and keep it under your hat. Trust is the key element in any relationship; if your customer learns that he or she cannot trust you, you risk losing that relationship and that business. This is one of the hallmarks of consultative and relationship selling and one that you want to practice without exception.

If you take seriously this role as your company’s eyes and ears in the marketplace, what do you do with the information you collect? Here are some tips to consider:

Deliver information to the relevant party in your company. Touch base with those in your company who need to know what you’ve learned.

Consider the implications of what you’ve learned on your company’s planning. If you learn that your customer may be moving into a new technology that would render one of your products unnecessary to them, take that to your sales manager and then, with the sales manager, to upper management.

Remember that you’re selling to those inside as well. It’s likely that everyone in your company keeps plenty busy with the current workload. To stop and consider new requirements often causes consternation among some. Sell them to accomplish the desired response, much as you would with external customers.

Do some of your own good thinking to offer alternatives. Many managers appreciate people who offer suggestions along with the challenges they present. When you can present the challenge with multiple alternatives, including one you can specifically recommend and justify, you’re likely to gain your manager’s admiration.

Treat your internal customers as you would those outside the organization. Courtesy and professionalism will often carry the day with your external customers; the same is true with those inside. Rather than demand, complain, whine and act impatiently, bring the same manners to those internal conversation and request as you would to your most valuable paying customers. That includes expressing your appreciation with a note or e-mail message when you get the help you need.

John Carroll is a business consultant, speaker, author and president of Unlimited Performance Inc. in Mount Pleasant. E-mail him at jcarroll@uperform.com.

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