Selling is not just pushing your products to your customers. In a sales job, you can also act as a consultant, mentor, advisor and a friend. And all of these require you to build a relationship based on trust with your customer. (This applies to both B2B & B2C selling). So, when there is complete trust between you and your customer, it will be the customer who will be talking and you who will be listening…well, most of the time. And, if you can do so effectively, by just asking a few probing questions in between, you are the next success story for your organisation!
Now, this works particularly well for women who are in this profession. Let me tell you from my own experience that Indian customers do not trust a "fast" woman for any kind of long term business association. Yes, he / she may get excited while talking to one of those talkative, extremely extrovert and pushy women in job, but they don't feel comfortable in doing serious business with them which involves long term commitments. And if you are looking at the South Indian market, in particular, for your business growth, then better keep this in mind!
One more advice to the ladies: Please pick your dress based on whom you are going to meet – for example, it is a good idea to wear your suit if you are meeting people at IBM, but wear a nice cotton sari in pastel colour for your meeting with the people at SBI. I am not saying that you can't exchange the dress code for these two kinds of companies's trust, but it helps you to get identified with specific corporate culture and gives you leverage in dealing with their employees.
About the Author
Occupation: Professional
MBA in Marketing & Finance from Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai. Ten+ years experience in technology marketing, management consulting & urban infrastructure management. Managed and led Marketing & Sales team for Indian Subcontinent business for CooksonElectronics,a US$3B conglomerate based out of New Jersey, USA. Started operations in Sri Lanka, UAE & Nepal for Cookson.
At present working as AVP – Chairman’s Office with Asipac Projects, India’s only project marketing and consulting firm in the domain of Real Estate.
Working experience in Multi-functional operations – Sales, Marketing, Finance & HR. Core Competency in building new products, entry to new market, financial modeling and marketing strategy for B2B products and Indian real estate business
Personal Achievements:
o Article in “Malls of India” published by Retail Images
o Established and maintaining a popular blog http://letsmakebrandsthatlasts.blogspot.com/, an interactive space for Marketing professionals.
o Been accepted into the Nitron Circle of Experts, which caters to the research and advisory needs of investment firms, corporations, and law practices by providing access to insights from frontline industry experts
o Published articles in Times of India and in internet magazines
