Letters, feedback, get it off your chest: 20 January 2010

Readers have their say over last week’s news. Why not join in the debate by sharing your opinion of these, or any other, of our stories.

Letter of the week:

Re: Ten steps to your next rep: Print21 magazine article
A great article, well-done James, I like your sense of humour; I completely agree with you. Great story and one I can relate too.

I think the best sales people are not generally the ones we think will make a great sales person but one who we like and get on with because of their personality that makes them who they are and how well they adjust to our personal environment.

When I was a printing apprentice, I received my first comment or compliment from a client doing a press check that I should get into sales. I had no idea at the time how right they were and yet I mentioned this to my boss at the time and he laughed at me, along with other bosses after this. Even though customers were telling me this repeatedly and my bosses would come asking what I did with a customer that would make them ask me to make ready their jobs each time or would ask for my opinion over theirs.

It was flattering. I was a printer who was board doing the same thing repeatedly but loved the challenge of working with others, helping them and making them feel at ease that I was in total control and there to help them. I really did care about my job and the outcome even though I was board actually working on the press.

Finally, after 14 years as a printer, I mustered the courage to do what my bosses thought would never work and I left printing all together to get into sales. I quickly learned that selling was hard and that I was not very good at it. I would get many appointments but was not getting the sales. It was nothing personal, the people liked me and were very helpful but I just didn’t know enough about what I was selling and lacked the confidence to help them. ‘Help them’ is was what I was missing; I wasn’t in the right environment and did not have the confidence in the product I was selling.

I learned a lot though and in the right environment, which was printing, things would prove to be a lot different. Nearly 11 years later and I am with the same company, Printgraphics. I still love it and the people I work with. I have seen many sales people come and go. Some are forced to leave while others left on their own. The ones that really didn’t work out had something in common, they did not have the right attitude or had different expectations of what the job involved or was required of them.

In the cases where the rep didn’t work out, I knew from the first time I met them that they would not make it. For one reason or another, I sensed that they were not right for this company or vice versa. Sometimes the environment might be the cause of one’s failure if you wish to call it failure, I like to call it a learning experience we all have them and because of them we learn and become better human beings. The reason why some make it and others don’t is not always because of how good a sales rep is, but how well they adjust to a new environment.

The environment we work in plays a major role on how well we fit in. The same can be said about the environment in life and how will live it too. I have learned from my wife and life's experience that our gut feeling is a great judge and we should listen to it more often, but sometimes we are lead by desire and an illusion, of what we would like rather then what we really need or is best for us and those around us.

Thank you for inspiring me to write to you.

Nicholas Raftopoulos