Sales and Customers?

I've blogged this before. Here are a couple more thoughts. To repeat a previous thought:

People do NOT like to be sold to. But they LOVE to buy!

If you call yourself a sales person, that is how you will be perceived: As someone out to sell stuff. However, if you position yourself as an adviser, you have a better chance of gaining your potential client's trust. Of course you must also ACT as an adviser. If you really believe in your product (If you don't, you've got other issues.), people will want to buy it.

Likewise, if you position your potential client as a "client" vs. a "customer," that helps the whole mind set. In fact, if you can find a term for them that is NOT "client" or "customer," all the better. A prime example: American Express has "members." "Membership has its privileges."

Disney does not have employees. They have "Cast Members." Blue Cross Blue Shield has "Customer Advocates." Many businesses use the term "team member" rather than "employee." What does your company have?

Sometimes it feels as if I'm spitting into the wind when I put my comments out here. It's a good place to vent. As they say, "fight the good fight." Right?

"The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it."
Woodrow Wilson

"Only the dead fish go with the flow!"
Unknown

Edit: Just got off the phone with a company whose sales people are called "Solution Specialists!" Nice. This was nice following a nearly 1.5 hr. phone call to Adobe in which I was passed around among 7 different people who all began by asking me for my customer number. It was an exercise in utter frustration. No solution. No specialists. Wouldn't you think a software company would be run with software that made life easier for its customers?