Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

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  1

  JewelloftheNile

  02/12/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  I hope that was an exercise in teaching people to suck eggs, but I suspect for some, it's not.

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  2

  Motioneering

  02/12/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  Give me a break! This is an old story, too well
  worn. Please move on.

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  3

  Freightdog

  02/12/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  I dealt with 2 peddlers today, bought nothing from them.

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  kairoskronos

  02/13/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  But there is a time and place for peddling, right?

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  Ian P

  02/13/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  The whole ethos of the quiz and of some of the feedback is that
  1 there is some kind of structural difference between peddling and selling
  2 peddling is somehow beneath contempt and for lesser mortals.
  
  Hmmm, do we really believe this Geoffrey?
  There are sophisticated and unsophisticated sales techniques and each has its place in this world - even in the B2B circus.
  
  I know market salesmen and women whose ability to feed their family day to day depends on instant hits with passing customers. (the peddling part)
  
  Those same traders build their reputations on knowing how to make their customers come back time and again and they thrive on the respect they earn through product quality and delivery of service (the selling part).
  
  The same goes in the business world. Peddle your way into the market, but sell for the long term.
  
  My vote is - use both techniques in their appropriate time and place - supplemented by intelligent marketing.

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  6

  1skier

  02/13/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  I concur with Ian P. - everything in its time and place, and there are certainly situations we all encounter where the best for all parties is to be the peddler, and those where being a seller makes sense. The bottom line - the dollars have to cross the threshold, and the more tools you have to get them there, the more successful you will be.

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  trebohm

  02/13/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  Sometimes you just have to move product. Do it with some integrity and you'll build a reputation as an honest sales professional.
  
  I meet a lot of people who think they are using a "consultative" approach to sales, but they don't know their products and can't reliably close deals. I think these folks wish they were not in sales so they cling to the idea of being a consultant and they end up not being good at either consulting or sales.

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  8

  glpgcp

  02/13/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  I believe that if you genuinely have the customers best interest in place first, the sale will follow. Always put yourself in the position the customer is in and act accordingly. I never buy from someone that doesn't put my interest first and insists on hard selling me. That person will never form a relationship with his/her customers.

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  liddings

  02/13/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  To clarify ~ if you have a continuing relationship of business then you are selling. If the client calls on you, then you are selling. If the client refers you, then you are selling.

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  Playnblue

  02/13/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  I have earned and enjoy deep long-term relationships with my customers. In many accounts, I have gained the exaulted position of "trusted advisor", which gives me the opportunity to "peddle" when I feel the need. I don't sell things to my customers they don't need or I don't thing is a fit, but sometimes customers need help moving to the appropriate conclusion. Someone once said and I think it was me, "You can make someone do something, but it's better to make them want to do it". I think a great sales professional is part peddler, part salesperson and always truly interested in the best interests of their customer.

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  randym@...

  02/13/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  Geoffrey is speechless.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine

  02/13/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  Quote from randym: Geoffrey is speechless.
  
  Not really, just in learning mode. These comments are interesting. I had assumed that peddling was always a bad thing; apparently I'm wrong.

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  joreljenious

  02/14/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Quiz: Are You Peddling or Selling?

  Geoffrey, very rarely is anything in business one thing...and you don't get wet from calling it water...what you are calling "peddling" and what you call "selling" are very much the same, and often, to a person that sells to eat, i.e. for a living, one must use varying ways to do their job. For every "consultant" that pats themselves on the back for taking the personally judged 'high road', there is a customer who actually needs a solution, not hand holding walk in the park to discuss countless opportunities and the like, relationships aren't synonymous with results.
  
  Rather unsophisticated or not, and I'm not to sure the 'level' has anything to do with it, the bottom line is still selling.
  
  and....if you aren't generating and creating interest, if you aren't motivating their buying behavior, if you aren't discounting where appropriate, and if you aren't always looking for the next opportunity, your client will be snapped up by someone who will.
  
  Your client wants a change agent, not a friend.

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  SteveLanning

  02/16/09 | Report as spam

  Maybe we are looking at Sales people vs. Pitchmen?

  I know it's a couple days, Geoffrey, but one of the things I've learned is that there is a difference between "salesmen" and "Pitchmen".
  
  Here the 'pitchmen' would maybe be congruent with your idea of peddler in that they both rely on 'pitching' to a passing crowd.
  
  For my money, Ed McMahon in his heyday was the greatest pitchmen of all time. Billy Mays is trying to fill his shoes, but falls far short.
  
  The salesman does all those things Ian P and Playinbue and others has said about building relationships. Once built, THEN you can sell virtually anything to them--within your sphere of trust built up--they just have to see you point out a good use for it.
  
  Maybe you cannot sell that Model 1107 Bellybutton Lint Remover to folks as a first sale or as an upsell, but with trust built in you, they can see that their bellybutton lint is best when it is removed.