A company must awaken the seller within every team member.
Every once in a while, you meet someone with impressive
communication and sales skills. Sales may not even be in their job description.
Sergio, the mechanic who came to repair the refrigerator was one such person.
He did his work quietly and had a reassuring manner about him. He was a man of
few words. After he finished his work, he took the time to explain what he did.
He didn’t have to. He showed the parts he was swapping out. He didn’t have to.
I wouldn’t have known any better. He even cleaned up and hauled away the
packaging material.
The repair company was fortunate that their technician was
not merely repairing our refrigerator. Unbeknownst to them, he was ensuring
that we would renew their service contract, which we did.
Will the company’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
software attribute the sale of the next renewal of the service contract to the
mild-mannered technician? I certainly hope so.
Every team member of a company has what it takes to become
an ambassador for the company, whether it is during the working hours when they
interact with the world outside, or whether it’s after-hours when they are
playing video games with friends, volunteering in their community, or just at a
neighborhood barbeque.
Whether a business has 10 employees or 100, it has the
unique opportunity of unleashing its entire workforce out into the world as its
own army of brand evangelists.
The pleasant mannered receptionist who takes a phone call
and casually drops the factoid that your company won an industry award is in
selling mode. When your machinist is dropping off the kids at the daycare
center and mentions that it’s going to be a busy day because a major customer
is visiting your factory, they are indirectly promoting your brand.
When, at the local watering hole, someone asks your
colleague, “so what does your company do”, have you equipped them with an
elevator pitch?
It’s as simple as adding a page in the new employee
orientation, to not only help team members understand what their company is
doing, but also to help them explain it succinctly to the world outside. It’s
about knowing jargon-free language to share at a family reunion about what your
company does.
Robust brand evangelism gives team members a sense of
purpose when they learn to connect the dots between what their role is and the
eventual impact they are making in the world. When equipped with language to
describe the company’s product and the problem it solves, it builds a sense of
pride in a team about their place in the world. Such ambassadors make it easier
to recruit and retain customers and employees.
Every employee of a company is directly or indirectly a part
of your sales team even if they are introverted. Infusing the sales DNA in a
business organization is surprisingly simple.
