Have you ever noticed how the bigger the organisation, the poorer the sales people are?

Well, I have noticed a growing trend of this over the years. MTD deliver hundreds of courses each year and we find that the standards of salesmanship are a lot poorer in the large companies than they are in the SME’s.

So why is this?

Well, here are my thoughts on this…

In the larger companies they have a lot of brand awareness so people go to the companies to "buy". This means that the salespeople don’t really have to push the product and they become order takers. Now, I am not saying that the following companies have poor salespeople but when did you last get offered an up sell or a cross sell in TESCOS or VIRGIN?

Never I suppose!

Why is this? Well, their brand and advertising does all of the selling for them and their salespeople can become lazy because of the performance of the stores and the company as a whole. Now take a small or medium sized company. Their salespeople have to really sell because they cannot rely on brand awareness or expensive PR campaigns. They have to become masters of the sale because they don’t make as much turnover and profits than the big boys - this makes them hungry!

So, next time you are in a "big company" to purchase products or a sales rep from a reputable "big firm" meets with you to sell you something, pay close attention to their sales skills and see if they are indeed sales people or merely order takers!

Happy Selling!

Sean Mc.