Sales: Overcoming Consumer Resistance

The industry has earned its stereotype.

Through great consistency, general masses of sales representatives have barged into people's lives like bulls in narrow aisled china shops with eyes lured by red vases at the end of the store. They get locked in on what they can get out of a person. People feel it and resist. It's as if the aisles get smaller and smaller and the further they barge in the more damage they do.

Symbolic, but I hope the message is received. The more you reduce the person to the transaction and your potential received value, the more resistance you feel in your interactions with that person. Stop devaluing the person. Stop reducing your interactions to what you can get. If you find yourself doing so (or if you feel the resistance), then reexamine your approach.

Contribute value. Bring education or differing perspective. Create relationships that may not "give" you something today, but show that you value people first and foremost. Respect their boundaries, though arguably, explore them. Ask questions and understand what's behind it.

Interestingly, even sales professional resist another sales rep who reduces their interaction to a transaction, particularly if it was not self-initiated. They do this every day, so possess some greater level of empathy, but find themselves pushing back.

So, be mindful of your approach. Honor the person, but ask for business when you have mutually identified the need. You'll break less china that way.