By some standards, maybe even most, I'm probably not going to be nominated Salesperson Of The Year. Not that I haven't strived to walk that red carpet. It's just that those base people person skills that are fundamental to the trade, didn't quite dip their toes into my gene pool.
So for me to be "on" for any duration of time while engaged with an account is, my close friends will tell you, veering more toward comical, even YouTube worthy as I troll and stumble through random small talk, which I deplore, hoping to sink that hook into that morsel known as common ground. Verbose I am not.
I started some 10 odd years ago as a sub-rep for a tyrannical little toad with a Napoleon Complex selling Italian sneakers. After a few miserable attempts at plying my wares at some Ma & Pa stores in BFE, I finally snagged a whopper at a shoe boutique on Chicago's Clark St. and then I was hooked. ( okay, okay I'll put a stop to the fishing metaphors already)
Sure, I've had more than my share of detractors. One rep from Minnesota told me I'd never establish relationships with major buyers because there were too many layers to my personality. And that they'd surely move on before getting to the one they may actually like. With him it was like, "hey hey, what you see is what you get." And I'm thinking, nobody gives a rat's pa-tuty about your golf game fella.
So keepin your trap shut because:
A) You prefer a more hands-off, let them make their own choice, type of approach.
B) You are crap-yer-shorts nervous cuz you REALLY need that account and that you know positively that the next thing to come out of your mouth will at best, be inappropriate.
Or C) I got nuthin, is really far more natural than any BS'y thing I could conjure up.
In the end, I've settled for being called the most unrep-like rep...and I'll take that.
Credits:
d2dsalesman.blogspot.com
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