Should buyers avoid pushy sales people?
One thing that bugs me in business is pushy sales people. If they keep calling me, I'd rather not buy from them. On the other hand, my business partner thinks we need to more aggressive with our sales tactics. How do we walk the line of being aggressive, but not pushy? And what do most buyers prefer?
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May 16, 2016
Hi Marjan, I hate pushy sales people too even if I am ready to buy. I like this article I found on mosaicHUB because it tells you alternative ways salespeople can approach customers without being pushy. Hope this helps! http://www.mosaichub.com/resources/resource/how-to-avoid-being-pushy-in-sales
May 16, 2016
Ouch! Personally, I hate pushy sales people! Beeing pushy in sales means either:
1. that the sales person is very unexperienced (there is much, much more to sales than just calling!)
2. sales person just wants to populate their pipeline no matter the results (perhaps your company name pops up in some sales pipeline excell sheet with 10% success probability :) ) ,
or that the company that owns this sales organisation:
1. doesn't have clear sales vision/strategy of sales
2. they are too cheap to invest in sales (strategy) trainings for their sales people
3. again, they are too cheap to hire experienced salesman
In any case, it is to be expected that the solution (product) you acquire will have problems (support issues, warranty issues, etc...).
On the other hand, beeing aggressive is not beeing pushy or "pain in the neck". Beeing pushy means to use same sales strategy (that doesnt work) over and over again (and this creates posts like yours).
Beeing aggressive means to employ different sales/marketing strategies over time when there is no visible success using just e.g. cold calling.
Today, sales is more than it used to be - now, it is win-win partnership between customer (partner A) and seller (partner B). It requires to congratulate the birthday to your partner, to take him for lunch now and then, to educate your partner about your solution (not product anymore) and to help him to solve his problem (it doesnt necessarily means with your solution), or just to call him/her and ask - how are you today? etc...
Btw. I also hate cold calling and "unsolicited mailing" - it feels like religious sect wants to sell vacuum cleaner to me.
Hope this helps - lets stay in touch,
Roman
Apr 17, 2016
Key thing in a buying process is concentration on quality, features and price of products or servives, in case all the parameters fit your expectations don't care how pushy are the sales people. The more time the sellers spend for you the more compliant they are with you.
Considering from the seller's side the more useful information you share with prospect during the each comminucation the less pushy you are.
Apr 16, 2016
If they're pushy, they're desperate. If they're desperate, they'll bend over backwards and do cartwheels to get your business. Talk about negotiating from a position of strength! You always have the upper hand with pushy salespeople. Use it to your advantage!
Apr 15, 2016
Marjan,
It's all in the communication. Too often people are not honest, they fail to really communicate.
What I do is I set the agenda with salespeople,
Like I will thank them for the call, if I am interested I will take the call, if not I will tell them , I'm not interested. Please do not call back. If they push as ask when would be a better time to call back, I simply say never.
If they persist with uninvited calls, I simply tell them not to call again.
If they do I just ask to speak to their supervisor.
If they are following up with regard to something,
I just tell them that there has been no decision if that's true and ask them to call me back in x days/weeks,months. in most of the cases they will comply.
There are a number of reasons, that drive a salesperson to make calls, some are company driven, some are salesperson driven.
I can understand that they have a job to do.
I always tell my salespeople they must have a valid reason to call someone, even more so if you are following up. often I will blame the computer, It has indicated that I should contact you, or I have a reason to contact you because ....... or we have just had some training on this new app and I thought of you ,.... I was just reviewing my notes, and realised that I had not ....
When you call with a reason, you do not necessarily come over a pushy,
when it all becomes about the communication and building a positive relationship.
Apr 15, 2016
From my experience, sales (not always but often) get pushy due to a lack of effective marketing. Marketing and sales are two different activities that should work in sequence and support each other.
Marketing should drive leads and prospects to your sales department who then further educate and nurture those relationships to a sale. Then marketing can either step back in and/or work with sales to generate referrals from existing customers/clients in the form of a formal referral program - not a whatever-the-wind-blows-in-the-door referral program.
Many businesses combine marketing and sales into sales. They are either cheap, stupid or both and often assume there is an efficiency in that combination. But there isn't if they really want sustained growth.
Salespeople who have to drum up leads is an example of poor or non-existent marketing. This approach eliminates effective marketing from happening and leaves your brand gasping for air.
Salespeople operating alone generally operate from a desperation mentality without effective marketing. That makes them pushy. Gone is the matching of a specific message to a specific market beyond saying something like, "This widget/service is very popular with your competition and works great for the lawncare/food service/healthcare/travel/legal businesses we work with.", where the salesperson just inserts the type of business they are pitching at the moment into the generic statement.
A step away from that is where a company takes a product or service and rewrites the promotional materials slightly so they target different niches. This is really little more than an expanded version of the sentence above unless the materials have industry-specific info added appropriately.
Companies that are desperate for sales with no system to effectively position themselves as the best choice from all you have to choose from will often come across as pushy. They need the sale today and can't wait until tomorrow because they are either too weak in the marketplace (a commodity with no value differentiation) or just can't wait because they adopted the "we live hand-to-mouth" mentality and have to sell to you now or turn off the lights next week - or sooner.
You don't have to rely on pushy sales tactics and shouldn't because it weakens brand, dissolves customer trust and loyalty, and ruins reputation. Maybe not immediately, but eventually if you manage to survive.
You might need more aggressive sale tactics, but if you're not defining those from the position and awareness of a larger marketing and sales strategy (part of your business plan/marketing plan), you're just creating standalone pushy sales tactics. Once you get addicted to pushy sales as business as usual, if you don't like it now, just wait. One morning you'll be laying in bed thinking about getting up to go to work, getting that gnawing, sickening feeling in your stomach. It progresses form there.
Some people aren't bothered by being pushy to get what they want. In fact, some are raised that way and are indifferent to it or the impact it has on others. For some it's the work/life lessons they've come to accept and be influenced by.
Personally I don't agree with the pushy approach as it's not needed. Work should be fun and enjoyable and I don't think it's the best approach for both buyers and sellers and the business as an entity. Every pushy sales situation I've seen gets more and more toxic as it feeds upon itself.
But when it's the only approach someone's ever seen work, they often defend it to the death...
...of the business. Then they just walk away and start it all over again.
Apr 15, 2016
I think the key is the definition of what they sell and what it does. However, the general term is based on Pushing a Product or Service at you without first Understanding what you need. So, given your own situation, how are you going about preparing for Sales Calls? One of the things that most people don't do is prepare for a Sales Call. On a first call, you should have it scripted out and figure out what they are going to ask you and where your prospects interest may lie. For later calls in the cycle, it is all about really understanding the nature of what you want to get out of the call and where you can take the prospect on that particular Call or Meeting. Not a one size fits all situation
Apr 15, 2016
Most buyers prefer to deal with salespeople who listen and have good emotional intelligence.... BTW tell them you think they are being pushing in your opinionm, it will open up the dialogue and if it doesn't than they were not listening
Apr 15, 2016
I prefer quality - I prefer sincere caring for what my need is - I prefer you giving me space to figure out my questions, let me roam, believe you me, I have already decided if I want your product or service before I approach you - why? because I have researched you - but if I get the pushy (today is the only day you can get it for this price) scenario I will walk. It isn't about the sale it is about the quality of service that you provide. It is about the value of your product or service and it is about me seeing that value - Price is not the deciding factor if value and quality is.
Apr 15, 2016
First, do not confuse frequency of calls with "pushy". And, define "pushy"? Calling every hour or every day is aggressive. Calling every week or every quarter is not. Being disrespectful and not interacting in a professional fashion (i.e. not taking no for an answer, talking over you, not listening, not being respectful generally) is aggressive and "pushy" - having a conversation and asking interrogative questions pertinent to your situation is not.
I hate hypocrites who want "aggressive" salespeople, but cannot handle sales calls, personally. Also, sales, marketing, and business development people have a job to do - just like you - learn more about the profession, learn how to handle the calls, create a process for handling the calls, and be more respectful - maybe with that understanding your own sales efforts will improve.
Not sure its about hypocrisy. There is a gracious approach to selling that makes this whole aggressive/passive argument mute. For example, rather than asking if a prospect has a few minutes, teach your people to be gracious by asking, "Is this a bad time to talk?" Let the customer make the first decisions and never presume permission. Aggressive and assumptive sales techniques always leave a wide and deep wake.