{"id":793581,"date":"2020-01-07T09:05:16","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T08:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/?post_type=articles&p=793581"},"modified":"2020-11-17T09:30:08","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T08:30:08","slug":"selling-trust","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/articles\/selling-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling Trust"},"featured_media":793575,"template":"","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[]},"schools":[29,33,35],"areas":[16,24],"subjects":[417,424],"class_list":["post-793581","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","schools-business-school","schools-human-sciences-and-technology","schools-university","areas-competitiveness-growth","areas-strategy","subjects-entrepreneurship","subjects-marketing"],"custom-fields":{"wpcf-article-summary-enable":["1"],"wpcf-article-summary":["The sales profession has evolved considerably over the years, but in one key sense it has stayed true to its essence: building trust with the customer is at the heart of the matter. Words and individual contact work. That\u2019s what selling is all about: businesses, customers, and building trust. You have to look beyond the product and think about how that particular item can create value for the customer. In this article, we reflect on famous salesmen of the silver screen and review the origin stories of business empires built on well-crafted sales strategies. This overview of the role of the salesperson reveals that today\u2019s Apple fanboys are not so different from the Avon fangirls of yore."],"wpcf-article-leadin":["Every sale has three main parts: the customer, the product or service, and the salesperson. What role does each play in this process of generating trust? The sales profession is nothing new. At the heart of the job lie the abilities that can transform customers into fans."],"wpcf-article-body":["Henry Ford once said, \u201cIf I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.\u201d To find out what customers want, so that we can tell them about products or services that can solve their problems, we need to be in contact with them. Traditionally, the contact person was a trusted figure such as a merchant or salesperson<\/a>.\r\n\r\nYou may be picturing the typical \u201ccreative\u201d traveling salesman<\/a> who goes door to door with a collection of samples\u2014like Del Griffith, the character played by the late John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles,<\/em> who sold shower-curtain rings by claiming that they were actually high-fashion earrings.\r\n
In the sales process, words and individual contact work because what we are looking for, essentially, is trust.<\/blockquote>\r\nIndividual contact<\/strong>\r\n\r\nAre salespeople just charlatans who chatter nonstop so we won\u2019t realize we\u2019re being swindled? Are influencing and convincing the same as lying and manipulating? We still associate salespeople with these concepts and think of them in these terms. However, in the sales<\/a> process, words and individual contact work because what we are looking for, essentially, is trust. That\u2019s what selling is all about: businesses, customers, and building trust. Del Griffith built trust by identifying the needs of his potential customers. But he was also able to make them see what others could not\u2014to look beyond the product and think about how the item in question could create value. This creativity is important in any business or industry, but in today\u2019s world it is especially important for solving problems and generating alternatives.\r\n\r\nThe quaint sales<\/a> process mastered by Del Griffith has worked for books, cosmetics, and many other products. The quintessential example of the door-to-door salesman is Willy Loman, protagonist of Arthur Miller\u2019s 1949 play Death of a Salesman.<\/em> Even today, in-home demonstrations of products such as Thermomix and Mary Kay cosmetics are commonplace, and have given rise to latter-day variations like Tuppersex parties.\r\n
The Apple fanboys of the 21st<\/sup> century are the grandchildren of the Avon fangirls of the mid-20th<\/sup> century, which shows that this model remains a good example to follow.<\/blockquote>\r\nFrom door-to-door to fan<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe concept of door-to-door sales<\/a> can be traced back to 1851, when the American sewing-machine entrepreneur<\/a> Isaac Singer decided to visit potential customers in their homes and show them how the machine worked.1<\/sup> A few years later, a young farmer-turned-bookseller named David H. McConnell decided to give away free bottles of artisanal perfume to anyone who bought his wares. McConnell soon realized that the perfumes were a bigger hit than the books themselves. In 1886, he founded the California Perfume Company, a small business that sold fragrances door to door, and in 1929 he created a line of products called Avon. The brand became immensely popular, prompting McConnell to change the company\u2019s name. Today, Avon is the largest cosmetics firm the world has ever seen.\r\n\r\nIn a sense, the Apple fanboys of the 21st<\/sup> century are the grandchildren of the Avon fangirls of the mid-20th<\/sup> century, which shows that this model remains a good example to follow. The impact of the model depends on many variables\u2014the type of product offered, the overall health of the economy, etc.\u2014but the salespeople<\/a> themselves are ultimately the most important factor.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n1<\/sup> Mir Piqueras, J. B.: La venta domiciliaria: del puerta a puerta al multinivel.<\/em> D\u00edez de Santos, 1994.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00a9 IE Insights."],"wpcf-article-extract-enable":["1"],"wpcf-article-extract":["By\u00a0Guillermo de Haro<\/strong> and Laura Blanco<\/strong>. Every sale has three main parts: the customer, the product or service, and the salesperson. What role does each play in this process of generating trust? The sales profession is nothing new. At the heart of the job lie the abilities that can transform customers into fans."]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/793581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"schools","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/schools?post=793581"},{"taxonomy":"areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/areas?post=793581"},{"taxonomy":"subjects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/subjects?post=793581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}