Selling is serving. It’s not stealing. There’s kind of two different approaches to making a sale, or selling something. One is stealing. The better way of selling is serving somebody. The two ways of doing sales are either transactional sales, or relational sales.
A transactional salesperson values money. They’re like a used car salesman. They just want the sale. They don’t care about what else happens after the sale. A relational salesperson values trust. They want you to come back to do business with them later.
A transactional salesperson knows their product. They know what they’re selling, but a relational salesperson knows you.
A transactional salesperson that used car salesman, they’re high pressure. They want you to close right now. They don’t want you to say no. They don’t want you to come back and say yes later. They don’t want you to think about it. They want to close the sale now. A relational salesperson is going to give you time to make a reasonable decision. They’re not worried about getting the sale right now. They know that if you trust them, you’ll come back and do business with them later.
A transactional salesperson avoids objections. They don’t want to give you more information. They don’t want to answer, “Well, why not?” A relational salesperson tries to find all your objections. They make sure that you have all the information that you need to make a wise decision.
A transactional salesperson fears educated consumers. They don’t want somebody coming to do business with them that knows their product as well as they do. A relational salesperson wants to educate consumers. They want consumers to know that they are getting the right product for the right reasons at the right time. Relational sales is all about fit. Transactional sales doesn’t care about fit at all.
By the end of the transaction with a transactional sales type of person, you feel dirty. You feel used. You feel yucky. You might even have some buyer’s remorse, thinking you paid too much for what you just bought. If you’ve been doing business with a relational salesperson, you feel helped. You feel cared about. You don’t feel guilty about spending the money. You think it was money well spent, because it was.
Transactional salespeople care about the short term. You may even see some of them doing well in the short term. A relational salesperson cares about the long term. They’re the people who are going to be around for a long time, because they have return customers.
If you are working in customer service, if you’re working in sales, or just about any job, you are selling something. You’re providing a product. You’re providing a service, so be a relational salesperson, not a transactional salesperson. Think long term, and value trust, instead of thinking short term and valuing money.
