Sales Ride Along #1

On Wednesday this week, I was able to go on my first sales ride along. I was paired up with a guy named Kevin who is a retail sales executive. I thought we would be driving around seeing a few of his clients, but the afternoon went differently than I expected. First, he took me to a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch where we both had some pho. During lunch he gave me a run down of sales, which he called Sales 101. He started off by explaining that sales is like a V. First, you have to earn the right to speak. Basically, a potential client is a lot more likely to listen to you if have sold your product to well know clients. He said that when you start in sales you may not have a lot of big clients, but you at least have to earn some right to speak. Next, you must find the need. To do this, you ask a series of questions to find out where any potential weaknesses are in the business. Then you build the need based on what information you have gathered at this point. This means that you guide the client towards the conclusion you want them to come to, but you want to make sure they arrive at the conclusion on their own. Finally, make a solution for them and recap. Kevin said the most important part of the process, which is also the most difficult, is asking the right questions to find the need.

We did eventually visit one of his clients, but we did not stay for very long. Kevin was seeing a client who just signed a year contract for a pay per click campaign. She was not thrilled with how the web page looked that was developed for her, but Kevin handled the situation very well. He wasn't thrilled with the web page either, and he told her to send in her feedback about what she would like to be changed and they would do it for her. His client's goal is to generate leads so he also assured her that the attractiveness of web page was not as important as generating traffic to the page. He said that his number one priority was to get quality people calling her about business. Kevin definitely put a lot of items into action that he previously told me about, and this was really cool to see.

After talking to Kevin, sales sounds like an interesting but difficult profession to go into. He said that starting out is the most difficult, which makes sense. Personally, I do not think I would like to go into sales. Kevin said that if a person does go into sales, then he or she needs to be prepared for a lot of rejection. He told me that it was good if a person made 100 calls and three people agreed to meet with him or her. Despite the difficulties associated with sales, I do think it would be beneficial to have experience with sales. A person can use this knowledge to his or her advantage especially to become a better buyer. For example, sales experience would definitely be beneficial when buying a car. You could read the salesman better, and by doing this be a better buyer. Kevin also said that it's easier to tell when someone is being genuine or just feeding you bs. If the opportunity presented itself, I could see myself going into sales, but it would only be for a limited amount of time. Kevin, along with many other people, always tell me to follow my passion. I think this is important if you want to be happy in life. Overall, my first sales ride along was very enjoyable and I am looking forward to my next one.