Natural Born Sellers
As the ‘Godfather of British Salesmanship’ it is my duty to comment on this new so called reality show Natural Born Sellers (ITV 1, 9pm Thursday 02 October 2008). The programme makers very sadly are clearly out of date with modern day salesmanship and I am really surprised that Mr Cauldwell, who built such a successful business, should be associated with such old-fashioned sales practice.
So, my thoughts are based on the good, the bad and the ugly.
The good was the comment made by the store manager that he would not employ any of these sales people. The only other good point was that the winner did show some semblance of integrity.
The bad – modern day professional selling is built upon having sound product knowledge, this little band of jumped up, self-opinionated, brash, pushy so called sales people don’t understand that the modern day professional seller can only sell what they believe in, and modern day selling is really all about repeat business where the customer, thank goodness, is protected and allowed to change their mind. The telesales manager actually believing he could go out and sell in a completely different environment just demonstrates what any experienced business person knows – telesales is completely different from face to face selling.
The ugly was the sales person out in the car park trying to get members of the public to go into the store, in other words attempting to get people to buy things that they don’t really want or need.
All in all I would employ the winner of last night’s programme, but the rest ought to stick to their product where apparently they have had some modicum of success. Let’s hope the next programme doesn’t encourage these outdated sales practices that have no relevance in the modern business world.
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:33 pm
It’s all in the editing.
Having met all the contestants, and having them working for my company in the next show, I came to entirely different conclusions.
For example, Anna-Marie and Leighton were hardly featured last night, and had they been you may have felt differently about their sales skills.
As for Danny, the guy you’d employ – well, no comment!
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:54 pm
This is a competition or had you completely missed the point.
There is no repeat business to go for
Its deal or die on the day
This was a 3 day sales competition.
They all hit their target and several doubled the £6000 target.
No one failed!!!!!!!
Well apart from Estate agent Nick who was chosen to be the token posh berk, Tim nice but Dim!
Had Gavin not been sloppy with his paperwork, typical salesman problem, then that jumped up slapper Thea would have gone!
October 6th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
It strikes me that had Gavin not been “sloppy” with his paper work, then Thea would have been in the bottom 2.
Does she make good tv or am I being a cynic?
I got the impression that the bottom two didn`t deserve to be there.
The reaction from Gavin said it all!
October 16th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Visit http://www.mtdsalestraining.com/mtdblog/category/natural-born-sellers for the very latest comments on ITV’s circus.
When it boils down to it, this is a TV show and if the sales people were using honest, down to earth, “make it easy for the prospect to buy” strategies it would be one big yawn so ITV obviously cherry pick what they cover.
After my attack on the contestants on my blog many of them called me and emailed me to let me know that they don’t normally sell in that way.
What makes good TV is not what the norm does!
Onwards and upwards with the next cirsus!
Seab McPheat
http://www.mtdsalestraining.com/mtdblog/category/natural-born-sellers
April 16th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Yes, they did hit their targets…. but I agree with Richard Denny in that it is not only the current sale that matters but also the future client, and hence the future of the business.
August 15th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
[...] of the show was that John Cauldwell (founder of Phones4U) was prepared to put his name to what Richard Denny describes very politely as: old-fashioned sales [...]
July 4th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Telesales is actually good for promoting your affiliate products both online and offline situations.-*`
August 2nd, 2010 at 3:56 am
i was in the telesales business a few years ago but now i do internet marketing-’-
September 29th, 2010 at 6:06 am
i have been in a telesales business over the last few years and it helped me earn more money`.’