Sales: The oldest profession in the world!

If you go back in history selling has always been done. If you wanted to buy some bread or cheese you went to the local market and bought from someone you knew and trusted. If you didn’t know who sold the best bread & cheese you asked someone you knew and trusted.

Then the sellers discovered marketing –The term, ‘marketing’, comes from the Latin, ‘mercatus’, meaning a marketplace

Sellers started putting signs outside their shops saying they provided the best bread or cheese. When that no longer worked they then started shouting at the people walking by and telling them their bread or cheese was the best…… and they sold stuff…. and the world of marketing was born.

Marketing discovered advertising — seductive ways to make you want their product — with promises of how much more handsome, beautiful, powerful you could become.

Then marketers identified the postbox and soon 95% of mail we got was junk!

When email was invented the marketeers found out that they could bombard us with emails (for a very low price). It didn’t matter that they had a small return rate — they could send 1000’s of emails and so long as a small number responded that was OK.

A whole industry was invented, ‘MarTech’ to try and help marketeers become ever more sophisticated at getting us buyers to engage. Experts in PPC and SEO evolved to get our website on page 1 of Google.

At the same time the sales people were pushed to work harder and harder, make more calls, send more emails, have more meetings and be busy, busy, busy. Activity, Activity, Activity. It doesn’t always matter if they are the right people — just be busy! If they aren’t ready to buy now — qualify them out and move on quickly.

Where are we now?

A huge, multi-billion £$€ industry that is mainly focused at shouting at us via emails, cold calling, advertising and a host of push/outbound marketing techniques.

But that’s not how we buy.

When we’re looking to make a purchase we research, via people we know & trust. We don’t believe the supplier and often spend time looking at 3rd party review sites to gain confidence before we approach the seller.

We might approach 2 or 3 suppliers and negotiate the best deal — and that’s when the good sales person come into their own.

So how do you ensure that you are one of the 3 suppliers who are asked to supply a solution?

The world may now be digital but people still buy based on their frequency illusion and confirmation bias. They will seek out confirmation of what they know to be true. They will ask their friends and won’t trust what your website says. 3rd party referrals will help solidify their comfort and approach you when they feel they are ready to buy.

Your job ( the whole organisation) therefore is to ensure your organisation and product is at the back of their mind when they are ready to buy.

So isn’t it time we took a step back and thought about how our customers buy and how we can align the whole organisation to how people buy, rather than how we sell?