Oi, what happened here? I meant to post this: Kon Leong of ZL Technologies, on encouraging creativity. I liked what he had to say about sales, and I liked what he had to say for his advice to people in school. This is what he says about sales:
You have to present your story in their context, not yours. They don’t really care if you’re standing on top of a robot and quoting equations. If they’re in the deep part of the forest, you’ve got to talk the language of the deep forest. Salesmanship is more like a language unto itself. There is no right or wrong. It’s what you make of it, and what’s black can be gray, and what’s gray can be white. It depends on your framework. The challenge is to share the same framework so that you’re seeing the same page in the same way.
Not sure if you have seen this, but below are the reviews of working at the company (Glassdoor is useful in this respect where you can find average salaries as well as an idea of what it is like to work there):
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/ZL-Technologies-Reviews-E107798.htm
A bit telling as to how the company is actually run versus the fluff press pieces. Granted some of the negative reviews could be due to disgruntled employees, but when you see the trend, there is likely some merit in the comments.
This may go into another topic regarding working for Chinese companies, which I definitely have some insight to. Most of it really isn’t positive, haha. It’s a shame that we would like to support our fellow Asians, but so many of these companies are run like white collar sweat shops.
Oh, wow. Thanks for the update, Danny. From your link, I think this is telling:
I’ve found that turnover is a great way to judge whether a company is good to work for. If they can’t keep people, it’s a problem, not only because they have to hire and retrain over and over again, but it points to issues in the culture involving trust and legacy.
I agree, I think sales turnover being high really is not that big of a surprise, but if we are talking 90% turnover, that would involve engineering and other operations as well. That is a very telling sign that certain things are not right.
That being said, it is a common practice (and not limited to Asian companies) to prey on recent college grads to pay them a little as possible to get as much work out of them as possible. That being said, with possibly Zappos being the exception, many companies run by Asians do have some shady practices. I wonder how much of your readership has experienced just this, and what their experiences are. Great new topic to talk about!
Dan is dead on when he says that sale positions have a high turnover rate, and companies love to exploit unsuspecting newly minted college grads to work in sales for next to nothing.
However, top companies with great products who recruit sales people have less turnover rates and recruit them in the same process as non-sales positions. The candidates must have a degree in business/marketing from a good school in good standing. Being a sales guy for Microsoft is very different from ZL Technologies, who has less stringent hiring practices and lower standards.
But most sales positions advertised to the public are from less prestigious companies and Dan’s complaint is directed towards them instead.
Based on my personal observations and experiences, recruiters from some of these less stellar companies would go into college career centers to target a specific group of students, particularly those with less marketable degrees such as the liberal arts, and promise them the world if they embark on a career in sales. Their persuasive rhetoric to these naive students would be this: You will become a good communicator and learn to work as a team by dealing with people, which are invaluable skills wherever you go. Anyone who is older and been in the workforce for quite sometime would know better that these skills can be developed anywhere, and not only in sales. A good example would be a barista serving lattes in Starbucks, where he or she needs to communicate effectively with customers, and work well with their co-workers to ensure the joint is running smoothly. But these companies recruiting sales people would throw in their sales pitch by sugarcoating the potential. That is, you will have the opportunity to make a lot of money, something a barista cannot do at Starbucks. It can seem very attractive to these young grads at first, especially if they don’t have a marketable degree and want to be employed right after graduation.
Any smart person reading the Kon Leong interview will know whatever he said has nothing to do with being successful in sales. One needs to know 2 important questions, that is, do you have a great product/service and how do you differ from your competitors?
Speaking of Asians recruiting other Asians in sales. It’s bad if they paid you a minimum wage base salary, it’s inhumane when they want you to work strictly on commission without other benefits, which Asians unfortunately have a practice of doing.
Exactly, Danny. Sales guys turning over isn’t necessarily a bad sign, as sales guys can go for not making their numbers, saying stupid things, etc. But if the core people are rotating, especially the managers, that’s a big issue.
I kinda touched on this issue of shady Asians here:
http://www.bigwowo.com/2009/08/asians-ethics-and-you/
But it made me feel bad after posting it!
Chr:
Actually, any smart person would agree with Kon Leong and disagree with you. Actually, any dumb person with sales experience would STILL agree with Kon Leong and disagree with you. I’m approving your comment just to say you have no idea what you’re talking about.
A good example would be your own accounting business. You could try to sell me on Chr Accounting, Inc by product, and I could overcome every point you make by saying, “That’s exactly what I get at KPMG/Deloitte/EY, etc.” That is why Kon Leong (and just about every good sales training course out there) talks about relating to your customer’s needs, not your own product.
@ Bryon
Really? Kon Leong said your main priority is to elaborate your sales pitch in the context of your potential clients, and not yours, in order to drive in business. Have you not heard of promising more than you can deliver, which many businesses try to do and often fail with disgrace? Worse, if you strictly follow his advice, you would be turning your career into a snake oil salesmanship.
Obviously if your product/service doesn’t address your clients’ needs, they will not come to you. This I don’t disagree with Mr. Leong, but this should not be the main focus of any sales tactic in this day of age, when you have countless number of competitors who also address the same needs of your clients. What one really needs to focus, is how they have a great product/service, which differs from their competitors, and how it would cater to them and does it better? This of course requires a research into your niche, your competitors and the needs of your target client base.
Let’s use Chr Accounting as an example again. I go out to market myself and tell people that my accounting service is wonderful and great, and it offers this and that. Then some person asks, well that’s what KPMG and EY also do. Then I would elaborate that my service is different and better, such as being more personal, more attentive, more knowledgeable, and last but not least, more affordable. And even if they don’t ask, I will bring it up anyway.
Based on what Kon Leong is suggesting, I would present my accounting services as anything goes kind of thing according to my clients’ needs. Basically, I’m trying to promise whatever the client wants, and hoping to bring in the numbers from it. Something which he said there is no right or wrong as long as the client is on the same page. This goes into the realm of ethics and I’ll provide an example. I knew of a guy who was an account executive for a technical school, and his main responsibility was to bring as much students as he can with his sales pitch. One of his lines was that the school will promise a tech position once the student finishes the program. The school never found this an issue nor they approved of this tactic, but it worked for a while, until one day he was fired for using it. A slew of law suits and students’ complaints about promising them the world which ended in BS and nothing else.
Chr:
Um. No. That’s not what he suggested at all. Not sure how you’re reading that, but that’s not what he said. Not at all.
Sure, but that doesn’t do anything from a sales perspective. Aside from price, what if the KPMG person says the exact same thing as you? If you’re dealing with high-end clients, it’s going to be just as personable and attentive–KPMG will assign a dedicated accountant to handle your business. With thousands of staff working at KPMG, you’re probably not going to beat them on knowledge (although you might equal them, depending on how good you are). So they’ve just said exactly the same thing.
So now what do you do?
You’ll beat them on price and could wind up undercutting yourself, but not everyone thinks price is the most important thing. Some people might even avoid your services if they’re too cheap. Which again goes to Kon Leong’s advice: speak to them in their own context.
Again Bryon, Kon Leong doesn’t say anything about how to be successful in sales. He’s basically saying you have to present your story in the context of your target audience. He then says there’s no right or wrong when it comes to doing this, as long you have an intended goal.
I wonder how Kong Leong would say about Steve Jobs and how he marketed Apple computers. Apple was basically about Steve and his creation, where he was marketing his computers as a great product of his own making, which it was an alternative to the IBM/Microsoft PC world. He was out there to convince people that Apple is a superior product, much more superior than the PC. He wasn’t out there listening to his audience/client base, and presenting his product in their context. You either like his creation, agreed to it, and bought it if you wanted it. He was successful because 1) he created and emphasized Apple was a great product (Apples are nice looking, with a smooth OS that works superbly), 2) he also differentiated himself from his competitors (IBM & Microsoft), by making them more expensive and high end, and 3) he targeted a specific demographic (those who have money and wanted a fancy computer).
Do you not understand that you cannot be everything to everyone when it comes to marketing a product or service?
Using the example of Chr Accounting vs KPMG, I neither can be an accounting service to everyone nor does KPMG. We all have our specific clientele we would want to target, because we cannot service everyone due to the many variables out there, such that a business cannot attract everyone.
Again, Chr, the issue is your reading of his words. From the context, he’s saying that there is no right or wrong answer, NOT that there’s no right or wrong in terms of morality.
And Steve Jobs did put his marketing into context. I OWN a Mac. I bought it because it helps ME do my blog, podcasting, and writing.
Sometimes I can’t believe how ignorant you are, Chr. There have been case studies on Mac Store “Genius” employees because these guys are so well-trained. For example, if you mispronounce a word when talking to a Mac employee, they are trained NOT to correct you (i.e. put it in the customer’s context). They are taught to avoid words like “unfortunately,” because it’s all about the customer being happy, which is what the customer wants to be.
I never said you could be everything to everyone, nor did Kon Leong. But I might as well get a good song out of this.