George Lindley

The following sales advice has helped me achieve the outstanding revenue growth that I’ve achieved at Pearson. But don’t think you have to work in sales for sales advice to be useful. Think about this if you ever have to ask for something, pitch something, request a raise/help/a date.

Back in 2017 I was new to sales and my boss-to-be kept scratching at the fact that I didn’t have sales experience. So I asked my sales director friend for some sales advice. By repeating the advice like a mantra, I was able to reposition myself in a sales light and land the job of my dreams. And my friend said…

To do well in sales, you need to be liked, trusted and respected.

Frederic Michaelson

Simple sales advice right? Let’s look into each of those three key areas in more detail to unlock its power:

✅ We buy from people we like

If you’re going to enter into a business relationship with a company, it means you’re going to spend quite a bit of time with their key representatives. Now, would you buy the excellent product, which comes with a pushy representative with whom you dread your next meeting? Or do you buy a similar, perhaps slightly inferior product, but you actually quite like receiving support from them. Hey, maybe you will even add their star salesman on LinkedIn and send them a few photos from your holiday over Whatsapp. Sales is a very human pursuit.

✅ We buy from people we trust

Repeated, complex solutions with a partner are more desirable than one-time transactional relationship You as the customer may depend on the solution/service for many of your own deliverables. Simply put, if you go with the incorrect service provider, you may struggle to do your own job well. We purchase from people we trust, because we need to believe the benefits of the solution will transfer to workplace results. In turn this helps you the customer look good in front of your line manager! With the services of company X and sales star Y just one phone call away, you will shine in your position.

✅ We buy from people we respect

Finally we have ‘respect’, which differs from trust in as far as respect is considering someone in high-esteem. Whereas trust is having confidence in someone to deliver on promises. We buy from people we respect because we inadvertently hope their success, intelligence, or prowess will permeate through to you. And it’s not a bad reason to select a solution/service from that provider because with b2b sales you’ll be spending a lot of time with the key representatives. A well organised, punctual, knowledgeable sales star encourages similar professionalism in others.