Why Sales Will Always Be About People

Sales is the driving force behind any business. You are either selling a product or a service. Even as technology becomes more advanced, sales remains all about the personal relationship between the customer and the salesperson. Companies that forget that tend to lose business quickly. Cultivating relationships between customers and your company helps improve customer satisfaction while increasing brand loyalty because your salesperson becomes the business in the mind of the customer.

Sales personalities are always in demand in the business world, but just having an outgoing personality isn't enough to increase brand awareness. Rookie sales people often overcompensate with an entertaining personality and forget that their main goal is to provide information about a product or service that communicates the value of it to the customer. However, going too informal and forgetting about the personal relationship also costs you sales. This is why technology can never fully replace a sales force or customer service representative. It's all about people, personalities and building trust.

A successful salesperson knows the client by doing extensive research about the client's company and about the client personally. You need to understand your customers' wants and needs even better than they do, and you need to understand how your product or service meets those needs. Sales personalities are important because they take that knowledge and convey it to the customer in a way the customer understands and appreciates.

Customers react differently to information and to certain people, so it's important to cultivate a personal relationship once one has been established. You can get the customer's attention by taking him by surprise with a piece of information, or by creating a certain mystery about your product or service initially that creates a question that the customer wants answered. However, you have to be able to back up your claims. A surprise that doesn't relate to your product or service is just a distraction. A mystery that your product doesn't create an answer for is a waste of time. You need to know the difference to be a successful salesperson.

Once you've established a personal relationship with a client, you are the face of your company to that customer. Your entire company is then judged primarily from that personal relationship and your ability to help the customer solve problems using your product or service. Your company therefore needs to be able to do what you promise it will because you can't get your credibility back once the customer stops believing what you promise.

Sometimes, clients react negatively to a certain personality type. That's why the best salespeople are adaptable and change their approach to tailor to their clients' personalities. This doesn't mean being disingenuous. It simply means that you respect what your client responds well to and avoid approaches that cause annoyance or distrust. If your sales are down, start focusing on your personal relationship with each potential client. You'll likely be surprised by the results.

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