Salesperson VS. Conscientious Contributor
In this article I will outline what makes a great salesperson and then highlight the importance of moving beyond a salesperson approach to a more enlightened conscientious contributor approach to offerings.
First, let’s go through some of the qualities that make for a great salesperson.
To be a great salesperson you must be:
Confident and able to go up to complete strangers and strike up a conversation.
Good at following through after connecting with potential clients.
You must know all the ins and outs of your product or be an expert in your field.
You want to be constantly learning, evolving, and growing to better serve the needs of clients.
Friendly and personable so that people want to seek you out and be around you.
Empathetic and build rapport, you have to care about others and have them feel that loving energy from you.
To go beyond the salesperson mentality and to become a conscientious contributor you must:
Offer value without holding onto clients and outcomes tightly. This is a pressure-free experience. The contributor has an ease about the interactions desiring the best experience for the customer even if that means you don’t work together. When there is a sales mentality, both parties can go away from the experience feeling drained as opposed to a contributor interaction where both leave with integrity and often inspired.
Most customers, myself included, don’t like to feel sold to or pressured and salespeople don’t often feel great about being pushy. A contributor focuses on the value they offer and works to create win/win scenarios so that all parties come away feeling good about the deal.
Conscientious contributors must love and believe in the product or service they are offering. In a sales mentality, this is often not the case. Salespeople will sell things they don’t believe in, while contributors recognize that it would be out of alignment with their values to push products that are subpar, ineffective, or harmful to the world.
Side note: If you are in sales and don’t believe in your product or the company you work for, please do something about this. Not only for the good of the world but for your benefit as well. If you are swindling or coning others you are harming not only others but yourself. These are lose/lose scenarios even if on the surface it looks as though you are profiting or advancing your career. The truth is, the Universe keeps the ultimate score and when you are greedy, cheat, steal, or do things you aren’t proud of it catches up with you. So out of self-interest, be ethical and do the right thing I promise you won’t regret it.
Contributors are always asking themselves; how can I better serve the needs of others? They know that their value to others is directly connected to how helpful and effective they are in addressing the needs of others. A contributor will often offer expertise and advice freely knowing that if they give value and if that leads to them losing the deal the customer will remember the help they extended. When we build good relationships with others based on genuine care and honesty the people we help are more likely to buy from us in the future. They may even still go through with a deal with us even if we aren’t the most cost-effective option or the best. They may give us the runway needed to become even better at serving their needs because they trust us and want to work with us.
A conscientious contributor will be honest with their employer and boss. If something doesn’t feel right they will address the concern head-on. If the company is doing business practices they don’t agree with or has policies that harm others they will confront the company respectfully, even if it means they could face backlash. They do the right thing even when it’s unpopular or others aren’t watching.
Salespeople often have a very hard sell at the end with an aggressive “buy now” kind of pitch. A contributor will allow potential clients or customers to take all the time they need to decide what’s best for them or their company. They will give customers the space to listen to their intuition and gut instinct to make sure they are making the right move for them.
Ultimately, the contributor puts people over profit. They connect with people and are here to serve instead of just thinking about what they can get, they focus on what they are here to give.
I hope that this article inspires others to join me in becoming conscientious contributors.
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