The Dynamics of Salesmanship

The Dynamics of Salesmanship

The definition of a sale is ‘the act of meeting prospective buyers and providing them with a product or service in turn of money or other required compensation’ [Wikipedia, 2007]. The sale is the practical implementation of marketing event and has a clearly defined cycle of events through salesmanship that involves, to a larger extent, attributes in selling. Those attributes involve empathy, ego drive and strength.

The sales cycle and execution of a sales plan, as a follow up to a marketing event requires personality attributes that contribute to successful sales. Salespeople are exposed to risk and rejection in a sale situation and must learn to process the rejection, adapt and move on to the next call. At VisualShare, we have had to learn how to become salespeople, selling a product to a market that has no money to spend. Identifying and calling potential customers, understanding their budget cycle and keeping them interested in you requires a well developed ego and a certain amount of empathy.

Empathy: the term implies that the salesperson sense the reactions of others to illicit valuable feedback from a prospect. For the most part, empathy requires that a sales person not be hampered by a rigid sales pitch but rather, modify their approach to accept valuable feedback.

Ego is necessary to make a sale. Ego allows a sales person use persuasion to get someone to buy their product and relishes the victory once the sale is closed. But too much ego can kill a sale giving potential customers the idea that you are both arrogant and insensitive. Customers need to feel like they are buying something of value not just sold something that may have limited value.