Are Your Salespeople Vendors, Partners or Trusted Advisors?

Earlier this week, Andy Rudin, a sales consultant, took me to task on one of my comments.

He said, “The ladder you described–vendor to partner to trusted advisor–bothers me because there are no standards or certifications. Agreed that some salespeople are better than others at the critical skills of trust and relationship building. But I’m not sure that using vague terms brings salespeople closer to what customers want. I’ve been in sales for over 20 years, and I can’t tell you with clarity exactly what a ‘trusted advisor’ is–and I still question whether Trusted Advisor is even possible when a salesperson can make a healthy commission or bonus on a sale.”

Thanks Andy!

I don’t believe we will ever give out certifications on those terms, but if there are no standards in place today, let’s standardize on those terms right here and now.

Vendor – These salespeople are essentially seen as equal or less than the many companies from whom the customer can purchase a product or service. There is no perceived added value so that purchases always come down to price, availability or timing.

Partner – Salespeople (and possibly their subject matter expert team) and customers working together to solve customer problems. These salespeople are seen in a different light from from vendors, and may be able to sell at higher margin because of the value and expertise they bring to the table.

Trusted Advisor – The customer/client calls the trusted advisor for advice before doing anything with anybody. In most cases, there is no competition because the Trusted Advisor is firmly entrenched with mutual loyalty, trust, love, respect and appreciation.

If we can agree on the basics for these three sales types, then we should be able to agree that a Partner is preferable to a Vendor and Trusted Advisor is preferable to a Partner.

Now here is what you can do on your end.  Get your salespeople to stop referring to themselves as vendors and salespeople.  How far does that get them when attempting to differentiate from everyone else?

Stay tuned to a future article and I’ll write about how you can get your salespeople to sell in such a way as to achieve Partner and Trusted Advisor status.