Have you ever had the experience of meeting someone who has sold you something very good that you bloody wanted? In the automotive industry a common joke says what bad salesmen the Ferrari’s salespeople are. Why? Because those who want to buy a Ferrari do not change their minds even if you slap them in the face!!
If you have experienced a bad purchasing process by a salesperson you didn’t like, maybe you were buying products or services that are almost unique, otherwise you wouldn’t have closed that deal.
What you expect during the buying process strongly depends on the importance of the products or services you are going to buy. The more strategic is the purchasing, the more attention you put on the buying process, the more critical the role of the salesperson will be.
Even if we cannot list the all requirements for a good process, we find it easy to recognise when the person in front of us is not authentic, or his/her behaviour fails to respect our ideas, needs and values.
Notwithstanding that it could be a little bit more difficult to understand our counterpart’s reliability as well as his/her hidden intentions. That’s why we get superficial clues which become our criteria for judgement: when the interpersonal relationship has problems and we do not feel comfortable, we do not close the deal.
Like Robert Cialdini has taught us very well, the Persuasion’s Law has its principles and the ones who can manage them at the best in an inner, authentic, smooth fashion, will appear as more reliable people.
How to manage the persuasion principles staying connected to our own values, beliefs and behaviours is something that can be taught. It can be learnt mainly through overcoming complexities and troubles.
Who has a smooth life, an easy job and does not faces problems, too often can’t learn: “on a smooth sea no one become a good sailor”. Facing problems and trying hard to succeed is the path which changes our beliefs and gives us the opportunity to learn more effective behaviours.
So, when you are looking for good people, if you check the ones who have experienced life’s troubles, might they have learned more by overcoming them. You could have more possibilities to find good, reliable people when they know how to face problems. They could even be more resilient against life’s hits.
In the same way, salesmen who have overcome difficulties to sell successfully in a troubled, competitive market, have learned how to care about people under their own skin, how to behave reliably, and how to maintain promises. Finally, how to be responsible: able to respond properly to any situation.
