Various Approaches to a Complex Professional Sales Job

It may take various approaches to finalize a purchase order. It is very important that we thoroughly understand the customer's needs. In some cases, we may be dealing only with the buyer. Some companies give the sole responsibility of setting up appointments and requirements to the buyer. Other companies have a different setup. Usually, if we're dealing with larger corporations, it's a team effort on their part. We may first sit down and talk to the design engineers about their ideas on what they think a particular requirement should be. Then we may sit down with production engineers, who tell us approximately how they intend to utilize the product and to manufacture it. Next there may be quality control people who tell you the quality they require. You end up sitting down and discussing the situation with the purchasing department, who finalizes the requirements in the form of a purchase order. In the meantime, we may or may not have been involved with upper management discussing any of the above. It depends on the size of the company we are dealing with.

Yesterday I met with someone from an accounting firm that I got a lead on a month ago. They wanted so many square feet of office space in a certain area. So I did my homework, came up with eleven possibilities, and submitted those possibilities to them in writing. They reviewed the options and discounted some of the locations and buildings because of size, price, location, and so forth. They narrowed it down to two. Yesterday morning I showed them the two buildings.

A price has been quoted for rent, and there are a lot of arrangements on the deal-the term of the lease, the utilities, the actual rent, what's included in that rent, and so forth. So what we do is to fine tune those numbers until we have an agreement between the parties. I'm acting as a third-party mediator; but my client, the one who is paying my fee, is the owner of the building. The people I have in my car aren't clients but prospects. The prospects and my client get together, and I'll try to hash out a deal. If it all comes up smiles and handshakes and they put it down in writing, sign up, move in, and start paying rent, that's when I get paid.



Q - How is your type of selling different?

A - There is a tremendous amount of negotiating that goes on, especially when we don't have an established market or when we have a hot market. There is a lot of bartering and trading that goes on between the consumer and the producer, and it can become very taxing, but that is part of what makes it fun and appealing. There is a certain excitement in putting together a complex deal and making both buyer and seller happy. That is one of your main functions, to make the seller feel that he or she got the best possible price for the product and make the buyer feel that he or she paid a fair market price for the commodity.

Our selling is generally long-term selling. It is not where you go into an account and order and make a sale that day. The time period is anywhere from ninety days to six months before we actually see the completion of a sale. Sometimes it's two to three years, and that is very different from most sales. The other thing is that you are not at all constrained in your job. Our accounts are spread out over such a large geographical area that it involves a lot of self-motivation to go out into the outlying areas and call on the accounts.

In many cases in a sales job you are selling an item that is non-changing. There are a lot of different techniques for selling it and some things change, but it is a fairly rigid structure. In a brokerage job, you have a market that really changes every day, so your job never becomes routinized. You have a market that is in a constant state of flux. What was true today is most likely not going to be true tomorrow. A lot of people like a job they can get to know, and then they can plug into a certain kind of routine where they don't really have to change. In this type of job, one of the main things is that you have to be mentally flexible. You have to be capable of instant change.

Q - What sort of relationship do you have with your customers?

A - I maintain an office with my client. I have a phone and all that. I stay very closely wired in to what they are trying to accomplish, and I consult with them on how best to accomplish it. Generally, the kinds of things I mean are things that will happen a year or two down the road after a healthy working relationship is established with them. Once you get a handle around a situation, it's pretty much like driving a very large aircraft carrier. Just because it's large doesn't mean it will go where it's supposed to, you still have to turn the wheel. You just have to allow for the fact that it is going to take a long time to turn around.

There are several different types of calls. One is when customers call us and say they have an application and want somebody to come out and talk to them. Usually I'll talk to someone in engineering. Engineers are great. They are oriented toward the problem. They don't want to sit around and talk about the weather or vacations. When I see them, all they want to talk about is the problem, so we get right into it. The engineer may take me out onto the shop floor or have some drawings to go over. As far as applying the product, if I know I have a lot of calculations to do, I just discuss it with the engineer and say I'll do some work on it and then call back.

Another type of call is on original equipment manufacturers who buy from us regularly. There I'd want to stop and see the purchasing people to check up on deliveries and orders and to see if there are any problems. If it is a small OEM, usually the engineer or the owner is the person I talk to. So I might discuss any new applications that have come up or changes that need to be made on the designs that they already have. But frequently it consists of periodically calling on the purchasing people or just checking in with them to make sure that everything is all right.