True Sales people no longer exist...

[fisicx]

Most of the cold call hate derives from those terrible scripted, genertic call centre ones

Do you mean those nice people calling about my Amazon Prime renewal are following a script?

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

I've no idea what you sell, but if I treated every lead like gold dust, I'd promptly become the world's busiest fool.

Today I convert 99.9% of leads in an industry which is extremely competitive. Sales for me are not just about opening doors for today and every lead is important.

A lady has just walked in with a cup she wants engraving. We don't engrave in house so I've sent her to someone who can but not before asking what the cup was for and showing her what we do by way of trophies. It took less than 3 minutes.
She now knows where we are, what we do, and I helped her solve a problem. She buys all the trophies for a community sports hub. If I've wasted 3 minutes am I a busy fool?

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Too many closed minds, I can see both sides.

From my point of view, a true salesperson is someone who can read their client, form a relationship and help them buy something they want or need, in a way they feel comfortable with.

Many like Mark like the more gentle considered approach, others like the fast harder to the point grab them by the throat style.

I like to think I have done most levels and types of sales, from selling on the door, to closing £10 million plus deals. I have sold simply by talking to someone walking past myself, to spending a year and a half building a relationship before trying to close a deal.

End of the day, it is all selling.

As for another poster asking how much cold calling actually makes, I rarely got told F off in ten years in cold calling, most people were in when I called. I haven’t done that style for 15 years now, but last time I made circa £90k pa, but I only worked three and a half days a week.

Never look down on any kind of sales approach, the simple truth is, all methods work some of the time, all methods can fail some of the time. Sales is 90% about attitude and state of mind, if you expect to sell you more often than not do, if you expect not to sell, well, you are normally right.

I'd go along with most of that with special emphasis on the last paragraph. I believe that state of mind applies to all leads