Episode 9 of 'One Dollar Lawyer,' airing on SBS since September 2022, features a used-car dealer. Actor Hyun Bong-sik, born in 1984 and famous in showbiz for looking older than his age, plays a used-car salesman with a flashy way of talking.
Isn’t this what most people picture when they think of a salesperson? A flashy talker, sharp suit, heavy drinker, necktie around the head, a fire extinguisher on the shoulder like a TV broadcast camera, entertaining clients at a karaoke bar or room salon. When I first started my career as a salesperson, that was the image in my head too. About 20 years ago, at my first company dinner as a salesperson at a small company, the CEO asked about my resolve. I answered, "If the customer wants it, I’ll kiss his rear end all the way," and felt the mood turn awkward.
A few years later, I changed jobs and became the overseas sales rep at a fairly large small-to-midsize manufacturer. Overseas customers came to visit and asked me to be their Korea tour guide on the 'weekend'. But they were not end customers; they were dealers and distributors. Looking back, it was a 'very' rude request: asking the manufacturer’s salesperson, the one with the stronger hand, to play tour guide on a weekend... Not every customer holds the stronger hand. To a manufacturer, a small dealer is the junior party. This customer was a small distributor, the junior party to the manufacturer, and yet made this request. The sales team leader, knowing I knew nothing, told me to guide them over the weekend. I happily did, then at night entertained them at an expensive bar, paying with my personal card. On Monday morning I proudly submitted the receipt. The sales team went into an uproar: I had entertained a dealer at a bar the company did 'not know' about, paid with a 'personal' card, and then filed for reimbursement. The team leader covered it from the sales team’s budget. Thinking back now, I am so embarrassed I want to crawl into a hole.
A few years later, when I had become a manager, I was once appalled by a male new hire whom the older generation in the sales team had picked because they liked him. He showed up for his first day in a suit like something a nightclub barker would wear, with makeup on his face and a big bouquet of flowers in his hand. He, too, had misunderstood the role of a B2B salesperson. That is not what it is about... A B2B salesperson must first have a complete understanding of, and expert knowledge about, their own company’s products. That is why manufacturers often hire engineering graduates in electronics, electrical, mechanical, or chemical engineering as technical sales staff. Once that foundation is in place, you need to build expertise in your target industries and applications, and in the businesses themselves: the semiconductor industry, the automotive industry, the chemical industry, and so on. In a word, you have to be smart.
A few years ago, when I gave a special B2B marketing lecture to a group of small-business owners at the Federation of Korean Industries, I asked them what kind of salesperson they wanted most. They said: one who finds new opportunities. They want someone smart and tenacious who keeps knocking, for as long as it takes, until a new large client opens up. Now you have a feel for the B2B salesperson, don’t you? 'Smart and tenacious'
A B2B salesperson is a 'doctor.' Not a ‘con artist’ who stirs up customers’ desires with slick talk and gets them to buy products they don’t even need.
Say you are selling inspection equipment to an automaker. You quickly see that the production team, the User and something like the right arm of the deal, struggles with awkward controls and heavy weight, so your prescription is a new Solution that is lighter and easier to operate. The purchasing team, the Buyer and the left arm, feels the Pain of the existing equipment’s high price and upkeep, so you propose a Solution at a similar price with far lower upkeep. The purchasing officer, the Initiator, is annoyed at staying late because the supplier’s veteran sales manager still phones, emails and faxes even after receiving a KakaoTalk message, so you propose handling all work quickly through KakaoTalk and a website, with a system taking over much of the officer’s own workload. And the client’s CEO, the Decider, feels the Pain of profits falling sharply as labor costs rise, so you propose automation equipment that is compatible and integrated with the current production system.
Once this history builds up, you need an integrated CRM system, much like a hospital that stores and retrieves patient records. Customer information and history should be clear at a glance, even to a new hire taking over from a colleague who has left.
"A B2B salesperson is a doctor."
To be continued