The Anti-Salesman

I recently attended an industry conference as a representative of my company. The other attendees were all excellent sales prospects; however my goal was not sales oriented, but rather to learn as much about them as I could. I wanted to know how the current economic crisis was affecting them. I wanted to find out their major concerns, what kept them up at night, what were their bosses asking of them and what trends they saw that will affect their profession in the future. Essentially, I wanted to get inside their minds.

In order to do this, I couldn't come across as though I was trying to sell them something. Individuals take a very different approach to a conversation when they feel they are trying to be sold something. They are not nearly as open and often will not give candid feedback or insight into their world. So I became the anti-salesman. I never mention our products unless they did first. I never offered to have one of our sales reps contact them unless they specifically requested it. My only goal was learn as much about them as I could, nothing more.

The best thing a product marketer can do for sales is to ensure their company is producing products that customers can see value in and that those  products are positioned and messaged effectively. Leave the selling to the salesmen.

Comments

[Dino Vilimek]

A very sound approach! We all too often forget to listen to what the customer wants. How easy it is to take the arrogant approach of presuming what they want.