Being A “Chameleon” in Sales

In class this past week we had a guest lecture from professor Sweet’s own daughter, Erin, who talked to us about some of her experiences in her sales career. Erin works for a company called Uline, an American, and family-owned, company that offers several types of shipping and building supplies primarily in North America.

Erin offered some very interesting and important lessons that she had gathered in her career, especially when involved in sales and the relations she makes with customers. One thing she mentioned was that, with this year especially, she has had to rely a lot on inside sales because of the pandemic and all the supply chain issues it has caused. In class we discussed inside sales, and how very different it can be to have to remotely sell to people. In her case, I can imagine that making cold calls over zoom presents a whole new challenge as far as how long they should last and what types of nonverbal cues you can pick up from. Erin also talked about being a “chameleon” of personality types when selling both inside and outside. This classification is pretty accurate when you think about how adaptable one has to be in the sales business. You could come across a wide range of personalities in sales and have to adjust how you approach them to try and close the sale. For example, you could approach someone very rude and ill-informed about your product or service and have to try and initiate the conversation more than you would like to get through to them. I felt that this characteristic is a really big aspect of selling, and Erin emphasized that it is even more so when inside selling in today’s world.

Overall, Erin Sweet’s presentation was extremely valuable and provided lots of interesting points of view as a salesperson in the real world. Being sure to have that “chameleon” mindset when approaching a sales situation is one of the most important things to remember, and can definitely impact the art of selling.