FEATURE-Creativity, the third eye of sales professionals

By Maruthai Ravindhiran

Selling is any transaction in which money is exchanged for a good or service. Selling is defined as a transaction that adds value to the buyer by meeting his or her needs and results in mutual benefit for both the seller and buyer. Basically selling is the act of persuading. Selling is an art – but it can be mastered. Most often a salesman’s value is underestimated.

Salesmanship:

In my humble opinion salesmanship is equivalent to leadership. In both, one has to take an individual, group or society to do something they did not want to do but make them happy for doing it, voluntarily. In this aspect even a leader of an organisation or country could be considered as a “Salesman”.  Truly speaking they have to sell an idea or concept or policy or campaign promises or service to their subordinates or public and make them to accept it voluntarily. Sales and marketing professionals’ jobs are prestigious and lucrative jobs. It depends on how well it is carried out by an individual.

Qualities and skills of sales professionals:

The effective sales and marketing professionals should have the expertise in explicit and tacit knowledge and multidisciplinary skills, key capabilities which they should capitalise, correct attitudes and practice those as habits. Among the skills required by them let me discuss today on a singular skill which is paramount of importance but is the most undervalued skill is -   Creativity. Creativity is the ability to think about a task or a problem in a new or different way, or the ability to use the imagination to generate a new idea. If you are creative, you look at things from a unique perspective. You can find ways and methods and make connections to find opportunities. You become unique and a treasure trove to your company. Your management would admire and appreciate your creative skills.

How to sell boats:

Companies that foster creativity are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their peers in terms of revenue growth. Many people think that creativity is an innate trait. The fact is that creativity could also be learned and developed. Having said that I would like to ask you a question to get your creative ideas for a question of mine on selling. If you want to sell boats what would you do? Well some may say, “Identify the potential customers in the coastal areas or the fishermen or tourist hotels around the lakes”, others may say design and develop colourful product literatures or catalogues to aid the sales presentations, others may say carry out email campaigns and web marketing to potential customers.

Others may say to have acceptable price and offer installment payments. The list may go on but the correct answer from the creative minded sales and marketing professional will be the following; “If you want to sell boats, create lakes first”. This is how a strategic oriented innovative and creative companies should work.

So when you recruit someone for sales and marketing positions avoid asking, “how do you sell refrigerators to eskimos” or “Sell me this pen” but be creative in your thinking and expect it from your sales force and encourage them. Then perhaps the lucrative business is ahead of you.

In conclusion, creativity is the third eye of a sales and marketing professional.

The employers must endeavour to recruit and employ creative-minded individuals as their employees as well as they must encourage and reward their existing employees for creative and innovative ideas which would yield profits and revenue along with a reputation for having talented staff in the minds of the customers.

This in turn would navigate their businesses to achieve greater heights in the business world in spite of the difficulties and current crises faced by the business organisations in Sri Lanka.

Creative employees always stand out from the rest and make an impact on your business growth and the future of your business organisations.

(The writer is a professional Pharma Marketer and Trainer. He is also a Specialist in Professional Communication and Group Communication Skills).