New Position: Online Retail Salesperson

What is a salesperson? How is that retail salesperson different from others? In a simple way, we can say there is a world of difference between an outward lead hunting salesperson and a retail person. What they have in common is that it is their job to close sales. But that’s seriously oversimplifying the situation. Let’s dig deeper.

 

The retail salesperson for video shopping is very much a “lander”, the customer tends to find the company or merchant with the product or service. That makes a vast difference in the narrative of being a salesperson because the customer as the prospective buyer has instigated the sales event. They are a red-hot qualified lead. But once the self-generating sales opportunity has been captured, this is where the skills become like a fisherman landing a fish. The right bait and the style of landing the sale is a lot like the fish on the hook ending up in the bag. The significant difference is that this is a live shopping or buying experience, so the interactivity is very much determined by the motivation, skill and engagement warmth of the salesperson.

Personality versus Persistence

The new position of the online video salesperson is really focused on optimizing and humanizing the interaction. This means that the retail experience online can if desired and fit the personality of the brand or the audience fit be a little more entertainment-centric. The video format of zoen.shop means that by default, the consumer end of the interaction will automatically trigger a premeditated state of mind in the prospective buyer. It’s a little bit like TV, we forget that there are what’s known as TV “programs”, a little bit like software programs. The consumer by default slips into a more passive absorbing mindset. This means that the personality value can be dialled up and leveraged and the persistence aspect is really not part of the job. That would be for sales hunters who are outbound and in the field. These are distinctly different skill sets and rather distant personality types. It’s well worth thinking about yourself and the team in your business. Perhaps there are some hidden talents and people who might not have been sales-centric previously, but seem to have a natural talent for social media and these days TikTok, Instagram or Twitch channels are a vast rapidly growing marketplace. Do you have a digitally engaged personality, is there one sitting right under your nose?

Online Sales People Relationship builders

The real essence of the golden online salesperson is the ability to build relationships quickly, and sincerely and bring the human factor. This is a quality that the video loves, video retail is made for building the eye-to-eye-eye-to-buy process. Just like there are people with exceptionally high performance for outbound sales, perhaps they sell double glazing onsite bookings, maybe they arrange car servicing or leasing, and they might even be pitching zoen.shop, the online salesperson is someone who can “connect”. The power of connection is the strength of the closure of the prospect and the stickiness of the retuning buyer based on the feelings they have in the distance relationship connection established via a zoen.shop platform integration.

What does the online retail salesperson look like?

You.

The online salesperson can be you, it would not be true to say that everyone or anyone can or would even like to be a salesperson as there are personality types that are clearly less well suited, such as the more analytically minded person perhaps. That said, skills can be learned and often discovered. The key is to be able to open up to the prospects, listen to and match the needs and wants with the products and services you offer. Can you do that?

 

Can you be patient and explore people’s needs? If you can then we are looking at some of the most important qualities needed. The vast error that is made by people who have absolutely no idea about the sales business is that a good salesperson is a good talker. In fact, skilled listeners able to reflect on the information they gain are often the really big superstars. Do you feel that this is you?

Luck is Preparation with Opportunity

Perhaps the most overlooked quality that the online salesperson needs to develop and hone is the high level of preparedness. This effectively means product knowledge, features, limitations, timelines and costs. This essential level of preparedness creates a level of smooth delivery in the interactions, it brings with it unflustered honesty and integrity and shows genuine attention and interest in the products and services. Ultimately, the prospective buyers value and see prepared people as salespeople to buy from. Preparedness comes across as respect, and that makes salespeople “lucky” because they make their own luck by being prepared when the opportunity arrives.

Sale is Dating

Imagine a world where people make decisions based on words, pictures and video clips. Well, video sales are to an extent a little bit like Tinder or Badoo. Why? The fact is that we have evolved as a society to become judgmental, impulsive and frankly flaky and fickle. We are visually triggered and our sensory behaviour is geared to instantaneous interaction. Thus, we have to learn some lessons. We have to compete in the “attention economy”. We have to attract, interact and transact. That might mean a date, it might mean a deal. Love it or hate it, the reality is that instantaneous digital interactions such as video sales are about as rapid as dating and the overflow and customer support are much the same as this too. The conclusion is that you need to prepare the mindset of the salesperson a little more fluidly to be as agile and engaging as dating. The world is no longer about long slow decision cycles, it’s about speed, it’s not the big fish that catches dinner, it’s the fast fish and you don’t want to be the fish on the dinner plate. Attract, react and don’t be a fish out of water.

 

Let’s get you up and running for video call shopping, zoen.shop, ready to meet you face-to-face, because video channels bring us together.