By Dave Fellman
I grew up in the Boston area, so the recent APDSP workshop in Boston brought me back to my old stomping grounds. My first selling job, in fact, was with a restaurant equipment company right downtown, and I walked by the building where the company used to be. That got me thinking: What have I learned about selling since I started that job, more than 40 years ago?
The short answer is … everything! I was the rawest of rookies back then. I knew something about restaurant equipment, having worked in the hospitality industry for 6-8 years. But I knew nothing about selling, and I didn’t get much in the way of training. Fortunately, I learned from my mistakes, and my successes.
That’s really my key point for today. Every sales situation is a learning opportunity. The part about learning from mistakes is pretty obvious – although I’ll admit that I had to make the same mistake twice a few times before the lesson(s) sunk in. The part about learning from successes seems to be less obvious, but it’s equally important. If you understand why you got a good result, you increase the likelihood of duplicating it in a same-or-similar situation.
Maybe the most important thing I’ve learned to do over the years is to critique both successes and failures. Here’s the question I ask myself: If I had this to do over again, could I/would I/should I have done it differently? Worth noting, even with my successes, I often realize I could have done something even better!
One final thought for today. Most salespeople don’t get enough training. That’s simply a fact. But as I tell print salespeople frequently, in the absence of training, you have to take responsibility for learning. I know from personal experience that you can get to the same place that way. You can be successful!
Dave Fellman is the president of David Fellman & Associates, Cary, NC, a sales and marketing consulting firm serving numerous segments of the graphic arts industry. Contact Dave by phone at 919-363-4068 or by e-mail at dmf@davefellman.com. Visit his website at www.davefellman.com.