Presenting Yourself as a Professional

The Sleazy Salesman Approach

People are more and more opposed to the typical sleazy salesman approach.  This approach incorporates a lot of smoke screens, double talk, and unethical sales tactics.  The sleazy salesman approach also incorporates a lot of pitching, and “look at how great my company is” ads.  Sleazy salesmen always want to take, and don’t really care about giving.  It’s obvious that you are working with a sleazy salesman when all they care about is making a sale, and not about making sure you make an educated purchase.  When you incorporate sleazy salesman tactics in your business, even if it’s just a single salesman doing it and not you, it gives a negative impression on your brand.  People will start to perceive your company as one they can’t really trust in your industry.

The Professional Approach

On the contrary, when people do business with a professional company, they leave feeling satisfied – like they could do business with you again; and they wouldn’t mind encouraging their friends and family to do the same.  A professional is someone who cares about people more than they care about money.  A professional understands that if you take care of people, then they take care of you.  A professional makes sure that before a person makes the decision to do business with them, they know exactly what they are committing to and they are not left with more questions than when they started.    

How do you present yourself as a professional?  Aside from honesty and ethical business practices, a huge part of professionalism includes offering resources and educational information about your industry, products, or services.  Write articles and blogs.  Answer 10 or 20 of the most frequently asked questions about your industry (this could become your FAQ’s page on your website) and post them to your social media sites.  Create content and resources that educate people about your industry, not just about what you do.  Make a resource page on your site and offer them for free as educational materials to anyone who visits.  When you create your resources, it’s important to make sure people know that you can help them with whatever issues you discuss, but don’t inundate your materials with adds and promotions – people will get the idea that all you want to do is make money off of them, rather than help them. 

It’s crucial to your company’s brand to leave people with the understanding that you are in the people business.  People don’t really care how much you know, until they know how much you care.  When they see your company as a trusted source in your industry, your brand will be the first that comes to their mind when they need your services.