I am ticked off!
When did sales go from a skill based profession to an easy way of beating the system to make a buck?
In the Province today there is a full page story on a mortgage development officer who made millions in commissions- not by selling but by what I call ’skimming’. My definition of skimming is when you find a loop hole to get business that isn’t necessary ethical.
PS: For a great new book on selling pick up my good friend Colleen Francis book “Honesty Sells” and subscribe to Colleen’s newsletter that provides practical sales tips:
Years ago I worked in banking (in the ’80’s) and I was given the first area mortgage sales manager role ever created for the large bank. At that time you really ’sold’ you could not accept internal clients and your commissions were based on ‘new’ business in other words clients that would not have come to your bank without your sales approach.
The story in the Province alleges that the mortgage broker was working in tandem with the branch manager and the deal was the branch manager would send ALL mortgage enquiries to the mortgage broker. So, basically the bank paid millions of dollars over the years for their own customers!
In the past few years we have had ‘boom’ times and lot of people who thought they could sell were really just great order takers. They hadn’t exercised their sales muscle at all and in fact became quite flabby with inactivity.
We are experiencing the result of that right now where many sales professionals I have been talking to have acknowledged that they had ‘forgotten’ the basics of selling and this current economic reality has given them a swift kick in the A**.
So my request is will the REAL sales pro’s please stand up?
The ones who have the skill, talent, tenacity and creativity to go out there and find the business. Time to put on the exercise gear and flex those muscles!