Author｜Zhang Nianchao
Original title｜From earning performance to earning profits is the self-sublimation of sales practitioners
I read an article written by Lao Niu some time ago, which mentioned that one of the ways out for salespeople is to sell insurance. I don’t know whether it was Lao Niu’s entertainment point of view or a well-founded summary of market research. However, in this autumn festival, the silent majority finally feel less sad. After all, they have a way out, although it is not necessarily a way out.
Talking about sales, the ceramic industry has been running for 30 years. Most of the growth is inseparable from the expansion of sales, which has also created some advantageous enterprises and a large number of wealthy people. Once upon a time, when it came to the sales profession, many people always had a sense of pride and accomplishment, and there were also many stories and nostalgia about the past. However, due to the rapid development of the market, whether it is a company or an individual, the busy work has no time to take into account the rotation training of the position, which also lays hidden dangers for the career growth of sales staff. A single work experience cannot withstand the ups and downs of the market and the workplace. Changes have also brought about the pain of difficulty in transformation of sales personnel during the market shift period and the lack of talents in enterprises.
Nowadays, it is said that the ceramic business is difficult to do. Where is the way out for sales staff? All looking for answers. When planning a way out for transformation, the topic of selling insurance also came up as mentioned by Lao Niu earlier. In fact, selling insurance is not easy, or even more difficult. After all, it deals with individual consumers, and it requires much higher comprehensive business skills and personal cultivation. Ceramic sales staff are engaged in intermediary customers and do not directly sell to end consumers. Their job function is more to develop, guide and serve intermediaries. Looking back on the development process of ceramics, someone summarized the four stages of business - development, service, management and guidance. Sales personnel are naturally divided into pioneering, service, management and mentor types.
Today’s market, demand and environment have changed, and the requirements for sales practitioners have increased. From the original era when performance was king to a future where profitability is king. Changes in market rules have caused salespeople to blindly follow many things. It’s not that they are unwilling to do many things or that they don’t work hard, but they have lost control of the market and everything has become beyond their capabilities. This has led to conflicts between market and sales, production capacity and growth. The contradiction is directly reflected in the pressure of sales and doubts about people's abilities. Today’s market is no longerIt can be solved by sales ability alone. It requires a person with a system to reshape sales; it cannot be improved by changing individuals. It requires a person who focuses on budget, product, market, finance, human resources, and new consumption. system. Therefore, both the market and the enterprise have put forward new missions and responsibilities for sales leaders, and have also forced a large number of sales personnel who cannot keep up with the times to withdraw from the market stage.
In the past, when talking about sales, we talked more about sales skills, capabilities and market strategies; now when talking about sales, we may talk more about market organization, efficiency, decision-making and profitability skills. This is the inevitable result of market development. Sales staff can no longer only focus on the results of performance, but more on the process of performance sources, product efficiency, time cost, expense effectiveness, etc. These are directly reflected in the profit statement. Then on the sales report. The root cause of these changes is the slowdown in demand growth, declining profits and the result of the era of refinement. So, today’s sales staff, especially the sales person in charge of a company, in addition to having business skills, must also have basic coordination, management, and business skills. They can no longer just sell goods.
Today, it’s not that sales are hard to do, it’s that traditional business is hard to do. Similarly, the market forces have forced companies to shift from scale thinking to profit thinking, and sales staff to shift from sales capabilities to business capabilities. From earning performance to earning profits is the boss's new requirement for sales staff, and it is also a sublimation of sales staff themselves.
