Love in Sales – It’s not that kind of love
By John Aberle | heart-centered , Sales and Marketing , Soft Sell
Love in sales comes through in your attention to prospects
I’ve had a dream of speaking about love in sales for a couple of years now, but frankly the topic scares me a little. I mean we’ve seen Presidents of the United States and U.S. Congressmen brought to task for love in the workplace. Most recently the golf icon, Tiger Woods felt compelled to apologize for love outside his home. So while I whole heartedly believe in the importance of love in sales, it’s not that kind of love.
The problem with English is that many words like love had radically different meanings. Latin had many words for love, but two relevant here:
• Amor for love, passion, fondness, desire or an object of love, darling – from the University of Notre Dame’s translation site.
• Caritas for dearness, high price, affection, love, and esteem from the same
The point is that amor relates to a more physical or sexual love while caritas is the root for our English word charity and so ties in to spiritual love or an unselfish love for others.
Love in sales means caring for their concerns first
So when I talk about love in sales, I mean that heart-centered, soft sell sales and marketing requires a base of caring for others enough to put their interests ahead of your personal gain long enough to find out what they need and want, what their problems and desires are, what they expect the outcome to be. Provided you can help them, then you do so. This kind of love is related to the expression often associated with the Hippocratic Oath, “First, do no harm.”Continue reading