13. Service in business

One of the main things that put people off from a career in selling is that they think it means you have to trick, cajole and generally talk people into buying things. This is the traditional, combative selling perspective. You see the customer as the combatant that you have to beat to make the sale. You hear salespeople talk about tactics and strategy, about outflanking or pushing the customer into a corner, attacking his/her weakness, countering resistance, and defeating objections.

You’ll even hear discussions about guerilla marketing. This is the perspective that views selling as warfare, where the customer is the enemy that has to lose for you to win. But this kind of selling does not work in the long-term. You can’t stay in business where making sales means the buyer loses. Repeat/referral sales are the most profitable of all sales and they’re not going to happen if you think of the customer as the enemy.

But there is another way to sell. This is win-win selling – where you serve the customers by helping them make the best possible choice to solve the problem that took them into the market in the first place. This is selling as service, or service to the customer. In selling as service, the salesperson adds value by what he knows, what she can teach, and he/she structures a sale to meet the customer’s needs and problems.

Your role as a salesperson then should be to serve -- serve the customer, the demands of the sales process, and your own needs for significance and competence by being the best person you can be. But this kind of selling does not work in the long-term. You can’t stay in business where making sales means the buyer loses. You see the customer as the combatant that you have to beat to make the sale.