Who is a sales guy? Who can be a good sales guy? What is the single most attributes the sales guy should have? Well. The answers are straight and simple.

A sales guy is a representative, or better, a diplomat to promote the interest of his company – either by selling its product or services.

A good sales guy is one who can match the interest of his company with that of its customers without any room for complaints in the first place. It is easier said than done.

The single most attributes such a good sales guy should have are attitude. Without attitude he cannot excel in his assignments; he will be a total failure with his customer and his company alike.

Well. Let us make an honest attempt to go deeper into the profession as such of a sales guy.

First of all he should be qualified in his field. When we say qualified, in addition to his degrees and diplomas, he should be thoroughly knowledgeable with the minutest details of the product or service. Only then he can professionally engage himself with the more demanding and inquisitive customers. Otherwise even though the product or service of the company by itself may be too good, the customer may not be impressed because of the lack of knowledge (or exposure) of the sales guy.

What about the physical features and appearances? Whether the sales guy should go in his latest designer attire with flashy ties with ‘other’ flaunting outfits? Well. May be some customers would be impressed with such pomp and show. But most customers prefer simple sales guys who are thorough with their job - product or service. For a sincere sales guy, success will not depend upon his height, weight, waist, colour and other physical characteristics. It will entirely depend upon his commitment to his assignment.

Which sales guy can impress his customers most? Well. One who is taking care of the customers’ interest totally will get their impression. Rather than focusing only on selling his product or service, the sales guy should step in to the shoes of the customer and find out whether the said product or service will suit him. This focus will get the sales guy his customer’s extra affection! Once this is through, the sales guy will only call all the shots. His job will be made easy.

Why some sales guys who start of well burn out soon and ultimately end up in failures? They, in the interest of making a good career, ‘oversell’ themselves. Well. It should not be construed that the product or service may not have market. It is to be noted that every sales guy has a limit and if he exceeds this limit, he may not be able to meet his customers’ needs in time. In addition once he tastes success frequently, arrogance will get into his mind. This will easily make the customers to erase this sales guy from their minds.

Another recorded history in the market place is almost 80% of all new business any company handles comes through their existing customers only. Some sales personnel do not even make regular periodic courtesy calls on their old customers at all.

Well. Some sales guys in their anxiety to book more orders are ruthless in their approach with every one on the way other than their customers. They think that by pushing all others in the process to the wall, they can get their things easily done. They would like to be most obliging to their customers. But they are unreasonable, unrelenting or even arrogant when it comes to their supporting staff in their organization. They take steps to be extra careful, cordial and condescending with the bosses but with their colleagues and subordinates their approach is less said the better.

Sales professionals (please note not sales personnel) will always take care of their internal as well as their external customers. Without the support of the internal customers (their subordinates, colleagues and superiors) they know pretty well that they cannot succeed in their efforts with the external customers. They would appreciate and recognize that any disgruntled internal customers can easily mar their prospects with the external customers.

Thus it will be noticed and recognized, attitude is the clinching requirement to convert sales personnel in to sales professional. In the first place, they should get in to the ‘shoes’ of their prospective customers to convince themselves that the latter would indeed require the products or services. They would also take extra care to be cordial with all their colleagues so that they carry their support all through in the chosen endeavour so that schedules are met.

Therefore sales profession is most challenging, is it not? Go for it then. You will make yourself as sales professional very easily with your background and attitudes.

A seed for thought and possible action: In some industries, only men are taken in as sales personnel. Why not women? Probably, women will make out to be better sales personnel. Such a gender mix will heat up the competition among the sales personnel to the organisation’s overall good.

Are we ready?