It's All About the People
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by Naomi Wax
These days, you don't have to be willing to sell your mother up the river to succeed in sales. And you don't have to leave integrity and compassion by the wayside to close a deal.
With growing interest in “New Age” principles, the movers, shakers and innovators in the sales industry have been touting alternative approaches to selling -- ones that emphasise that sincerity and respect for the buyer need not preclude generating volume, filling quotas and racking up high commissions.
To be sure, the shyster, the huckster and the scammer still exist -- as films like Boiler Room, Wall Street and Glengarry Glen Ross are quick to point out. But you need only browse your local bookstore's sales and marketing section to find a slew of ethics-based options for the seller who prefers to see himself as a "buying facilitator" or "solutions provider," rather than an insensitive, product-pushing flack.
In Selling with Integrity, author Sharon Drew Morgen discusses how bringing "personal spiritual values into [her] job of selling" brought her success as both a seller and an entrepreneur.
Morgen encourages readers to see the selling process as that of "buying facilitation...a questioning and listening process, for the purpose of serving, that facilitates a buyer's discovery of how best to get his needs met." She emphasises creating a relationship of trust and collaboration with the prospective buyer by really listening to the buyer's needs and bringing personality and humanity to the interaction.
"Let the relationship come first," Morgen advises, "and the task second."
