It has been two weeks since I have worked for Forte and I have been enjoying every single minute of it (although I admit, it really sucks when you do zero sales for the whole week).
Ever since I stepped foot into the company, I have been learning new things every single day, under the watchful eye of each and everyone of my seniors, especially my dear trainer who has become like a second mother to me (haha). All of them are really wise and experienced, giving sound advice, encouragement and guidance whenever I needed it, and never once complained that I was a burden (which I felt like every time I got help).
I have become surprisingly comfortable with the people there despite most of them being in their 20s/30s. The closer ones are definitely from the team I was put under, especially Sing Xuan, Yi En and Ronnie. All of them treat me like a friend and not just a younger inexperienced colleague. Sing Xuan would never fail to check up on me every single day, sending me texts and buying me food. No one else has ever done that for me before, so I am extremely touched. Soon Yong is also one of them, he becomes my temporary trainer whenever SX is not around. (It's really interesting to see his dual personality in work and casual situations. Very good training style as well.)
The work environment is simply amazing. Where in other places you would find a typical drab and serious one (or so from what I have heard), One Organisation has a really vibrant and enthusiastic vibe which reminds me a lot of ACJC. Everyone is willing to care and share, and the work hard play hard mentality is really prominent here as well. Of course, it is not all about fun and games, there are expectations to meet and targets to hit which arent easy at all, so everyone pushes themselves really hard whenever on field. However, when it comes to partying, boy do we party. It gets PRETTY wild.
Anyway, thats just a tiny peek at my work life. Now, getting on to the main point I wanted to drive at today, which is HOW CUSTOMERS TREAT AND SHOULD TREAT SALES PEOPLE.
I have come to realise why so many people keep telling others that everyone should work in sales at least once, and here is why: If you don't, you will never understand what we go through and as a result, treat them as less than human.
Even if I have only worked as a sales person for two weeks, the number of FUCKED UP customers I have met so far is enough to drive anyone up the wall.
A few examples to illustrate my point:
(control) A normal customer - no no no I dont need / no thanks no thanks / bu yong la bu yong la
A friendly customer - Answers your questions politely and remain friendly with you, eg. oh I already have that / well yeah actually I have no intention to change coz I dont need it currently / thank you / you have a great day too
The know-it-all cutomer - Compares all the telcom markets in Singapore from Singtel to Starhub to M1 to MyRepublic and gives you a thousand and one reasons why they should buy from our competitors, eg. wah you know Starhub offers this and this and this so Singtel really cannot compete one / MyRepublic offers up to 1GB speed you know and its so cheap! You Singtel people yadda yadda yadda
The arrogant customer (similar to know it all but yet different) - Thinks that she knows the market of telecomm services so much better than we do, eg. 'You guys are selling to the wrong market! Why sell the product to people who already have it? This is Singapore. And you guys are at the wrong place, look at the nudity that is being portrayed on the screen!'
The guailan customer - They purposely come up with some wisecrack in order to counter your pitch and think they are extremely hillarious. eg. oh sorry I got no home la / I dont like SingTel (her husband later told me that they are using it while stalking off) / oh Starhub Starhub (when I ask whether they are using SingTel or Starhub) / !@#$%^&* (some foreign language that I dont understand that I am very sure are pretty insulting remarks since they are accompanied with a guffaw)
The Rude Customer - Those customers who are annoyed by us (I understand) and treat us like dogs (I dont understand), eg. 'I already told you Im not interested. How many times do I have to tell you, HUH? Your colleague already approach me just now. I AM NOT INTERESTED'
Most of these people obviously are completely ignorant of the fact that we sales people are actually human beings with feelings too. We are working so hard to earn our commission, and we are always extremely polite, so I really dont see why we dont deserve any respect.
Does it really take much to just reject our approach nicely? Of course we may be slightly persistent, we were trained to do so, but if we see that you are really disinterested, we would leave you alone.
Just imagine people talked to you the same way. How would you feel? I would personally feel like breaking the person's dick, but because all of us have an image to upkeep so as to not ruin the rest of the company's reputation, we exercise amazing self-control and suck up whatever shit thrown at us.
To the younger kids - I understand you guys are not at the age to understand what we are going through. Just wait till a few years later when you find a job, you guys are gonna get the exact same bullshit that we are currently getting. Hopefully you learn something out of it.
To the arrogant bitches - You think you know everything? okay, you can go talk to SingTel's CEO and direct ALL your complaints and suggestions to him. We are just agents, we cant really help you much.
To the uncles and aunties - You guys are old, I shall close one eye.
So please guys, whenever you meet a sales person next time, just be friendly. Even if they are persistent, just firmly say no but give them a smile. It makes a huge difference than being rude. However, it is also a good learning process when facing rejection and these kinds of customers so often, because my people skills (and tolerance level) have gone up a lot more since I first started, learning how to deal with different kinds of people every day.
So this week will be my third week in the company, I am hoping to gun down my promotion ASAP and help Ronnie promote to team manager by end of March. But first, I have to get my basics right first or I would never progress (like SY said sternly).
Jaden taught me something really meaningful (and TBH I was really surprised at his wisdom because he didnt seem like the type to ask me that kinda thing), which was to find my own reason why I want to promote. If I dont have my own reason and just feel like promoting based on what people tell me, I would never find the drive to do well myself. It resonated with me quite a bit, because I didnt have any particular reason of wanting to promote except to help SX and Ronnie with their own promotions.
I realised that I am more inclined to work hard for other people than to help myself, so Jaden suggested that I might be wanting to train and guide other people, so I could use that as a motivation.
I hope I will talk to Allison more this week, so that I can gain more insight from her (not that I havent been gaining enough from my seniors already, but of course its always good to learn more).
