Become 'work friends'. It'll come up - you probably know when your coworkers birthdays are, etc., right?
Aaaah... to be honest, the answer is largely "no". And to the extent that I do know, it's because our office manager sends out a companywide email saying "happy birthday" to employees on their birthdays, and I remember the couple who happen to be close to my own.
I don't know, maybe I'm weird, but that just isn't something I've ever found myself talking about with co-workers and business acquaintances a lot. shrug Guess I'll need to adapt a bit as I struggle to get into the world of selling.
But really, don't be phony, and treat it like a real relationship with someone you'll be working with, and most of this stuff just happens.
Yeah, that seems like the right approach to me. Thanks for the advice!
Then you're probably not going to succeed as a salesperson (unless you literally have a product that sells itself). Most stakeholders spend a significant amount of their time dealing with potential vendors and it becomes obvious within minutes of initiating a new relationship whether the sales rep is good or not. Unfortunately for people like you, "good" really does usually mean both affable and extroverted in addition to knowledgeable about both their products/services and your business. There's nothing wrong with cold calling to make contact, but by all means spend five minutes researching the target first. One of the best relationships I have with a vendor is a rep at a company I have been talking to for a few years now but the stars have never aligned to do a deal with them. Perhaps this will be the year; perhaps not, but I consider him a friend now just from the random smalltalk we make when we correspond via email/Hangouts every couple months.
Anecdotally, I receive 4-5 LinkedIn requests from sales & bizdev folks every week. I never accept them unless I already know and/or really do want to get in contact with them. :-/
Unfortunately for people like you, "good" really does usually mean both affable and extroverted in addition to knowledgeable about both their products/services and your business.
Oh sure, and I have no problem with that. I'm not a pure extrovert by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm affable enough most of the time. All I'm saying is that I've never felt the need to get overly personal with business connections / co-workers in the past. Or maybe it would be better to say, I only get personal with those people when there's a genuine connection between us... I never try to force that kind of relationship, probably at least in part because I associate it with sleazy salespeople. :-)
But yeah, building real, genuine relationships is another thing. I'm just intrigued to see how that will dovetail with the sales process, as I perceive that it takes a lot of time to reach that level of friendship with new people. And it doesn't seem that you could possibly invest the time to become truly close friends with every potential customer?
I know where you're coming from and I think it depends a lot on what you're selling. For example, I have become personal friends with employees of a few of our largest vendors who I ended up corresponding with on a daily/weekly basis, but for a lot of minor contracts it's completely impersonal. And yes, don't force anything... that would be sleazy and a turn off for most.
I'm a bit curious about the sales process, too, and occasionally tempted by the opportunity to learn more about how many different companies work (with a chance at making high six figures in the meantime)... but I'm too risk averse to seriously consider a commission based job. Good luck!
Aaaah... to be honest, the answer is largely "no". And to the extent that I do know, it's because our office manager sends out a companywide email saying "happy birthday" to employees on their birthdays, and I remember the couple who happen to be close to my own.
I don't know, maybe I'm weird, but that just isn't something I've ever found myself talking about with co-workers and business acquaintances a lot. shrug Guess I'll need to adapt a bit as I struggle to get into the world of selling.
But really, don't be phony, and treat it like a real relationship with someone you'll be working with, and most of this stuff just happens.
Yeah, that seems like the right approach to me. Thanks for the advice!