The Sales Charlatan
What is the difference between a salesman and a charlatan?
In a word: Everything!
The world of sales can have a bad reputation. Usually caused by what I call a Charlatan, someone who pretends to be something their not. They do things for their own benefit, usually financial, at the expense of someone else.
Sales people are often seen as untrustworthy and in a lot of cases this is because the salesman isn't a salesman....they're a charlatan. For the professional salesman ethics, trust and decency are key. Sales legend "Zig Ziglar" encompasses the different between the salesman and the "Charlatan" in the sentence below which was taken from one of his online seminars:
"Some people think that a good salesman can sell to anybody under any circumstances. Thats crazy.....only a conman could do a thing like that."
The art of the good salesman is to link what the customer wants or needs with the right solution/service/product and in the right way. Anything other than that is morally wrong.
Another reason that a professional salesman won't do this is that it is far harder to sell something to someone who doesn't want or need the said product/service/solution and therefore they are wasting time on the easier task of selling something to someone who actually wants the given product/service/solution.
The strategy of deception is used by a charlatan where as the tactic of transparency, integrity and honesty is used by the professional salesman.
The charlatan looks for the quick sale, knowing that they will never hear from the "customer" (or victim depending on your view of it) again and that they can get away with their dishonesty. A professional salesman wants to build a relationship and create lifetime client value. In essence this means that by selling the right products, to the right people in the right way and at the right price, the professional salesman can build a relationship that will have that customer returning to him time and time again.
Therefore by becoming a professional salesman and not a charlatan not only is it morally right, its financial the right thing to do.
