The Importance of Sales Professionals
—01
I finally decided to buy an iPhone 7+, after months and months and months of talking about.
The purpose of this blog is to explain my buying process and the events that lead up to me actually handing over the money. The story explains why sales skills are still relevant.
I had an iPhone 5, it was okay, it worked, it did everything i needed it to, although a little slowly and with a pretty short battery life.
There were a few bugs starting to emerge like loading certain apps it would crash, some issues with the speaker and microphone but pretty minor all in all. These are just things I would relay to myself to justify getting a new phone and to justify the $1629.00 price tag of an iPhone 7+. Because I couldn’t possibly get anything other than the biggest one available.
—02
The first step was to find out if my current cell company would offer any deal to either purchase the phone outright or go on a contract. Not really is the answer. They have some minor incentives but I guess Apple products are a hot enough commodity that there’s no real reason to incentivize the sale.
From here I inquired with the other main networks to see if there was any motivation to get the business and to switch over to them. Again, not really, each has their own subtle point of difference but nothing that compelling. All in all, a pretty even playing field.
I then put the purchase on hold.
Occasionally I’d drift into a branded cell providers retail store when at the mall to see if they were any more motivated, i figured maybe they had targets to meet so I’d try at the end of the month. Again no luck.
Then one day, my phone dropped a semi important call. That was the final straw, the one that broke the camel’s back so to speak.
—03
By now I had decided I’d stay with my existing provider as it’s just easier, there’s no need to switch numbers / billing information over etc etc
On my way into the mall, I walked past a competitor’s store, something appealed to me, there were staff waiting to help, the store looked good, I went straight to the iPhone stand and was served immediately by a very professional, energetic, smart sales person (I’m sure they have some non threatening title that’s not sales person but you know what I mean).
I told her my exact situation, she then proceeded to close me. I couldn’t not have been more excited! Finally someone that actually wanted the sale and was prepared to work for it.
It dawned on me, this is what those other encounters previous to this had lacked. A quality sales person who was capable of reading the situation, presenting their offer and then asking for the sale.
We got talking over the course of the transaction and have now connected on LinkedIn. There’s a lot of mediocre customer experiences happening everyday so when I’m impressed I really get excited.
—05
The purpose of this blog is to reflect on these phone companies spending millions of dollars a year (probably, not verified) on marketing, branding, sponsorship, you name it they’re probably doing it. But at the end, it came down to one quality staff member to get the business.
Am I a big deal, a big account to them, do I have any leverage when choosing a phone supplier, no not at all. But I believe that everything matters and growing a business should an organic process assisted with purposeful marketing and sales aids. What I mean is that when someone asks me about my new phone tell them the story, mention the individual sales person, mention the brand, mention the store. Will they get business from that, maybe, maybe not but if there’s another 1000 customers like me out there telling the same story I’m sure they will benefit eventually.
Moral of the story: Sales is NOT dead, marketing is the sexy more talked about relative to the dreaded “sales person” but they should really work hand in hand together.
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