The Death of the Electronics Salesman

Today I tried to buy an iPod.

Tried, and failed.

Why?

Image by Seattle Municipal Archives via FlickrBecause the sales staff in the three stores I went to just didn't want to know.   It was a somewhat surreal experience for me.  Normally I shop for electronics online, but today I wanted to buy a product and use it today.  I was a willing customer, ready to try out the products and with money to spend, in fact I could probably have been persuaded to buy a more expensive version than the one I went in for. However, I was treated with variously, disdain, disinterest, and downright disrespect.  Not only did the retailers make no effort to locate the product I wanted (which was out of stock), but they lied to me about the reasons and made no effort to sell an alternative, order one for  me etc. etc.  All the things a motivated and engaged saleperson might do.  Several of them even failed to make eye contact, and I'm pretty sure I saw one of them roll his eyes at having to break off a conversation with a colleague to serve me.  My reaction in such cases?

Walk.

Then Tweet.

Then Facebook.

Then blog.

What does this mean for the company?   Reputational damage, lost sales, wasted showrooms. Haven't electrical retailers got enough to worry about with the threats to their businesses from their online competitors, without actively discouraging sales in their stores.  Haven't they got enough PR problems without causing potential customers like myself to have a little rant about their poor service online?  It seems not.

The eerie quiet in both Currys and Comet was telling.  Not only have they lost out on price to the online stores, but it seems they've given up on service.

It makes me wonder whether the Internet is having far broader implications for business and business skills than we've even imagined.  If we lose our ability to engage as humans in a sales process, then I think we've lost something of value in our society.  Don't get me wrong, I can't stand being pestered by pushy salespeople.  Neither do I expect sycophancy and obsequiousness.  What I expect is to be treated with respect, to be able to buy the products I want with good advice, and for buying to be a pleasurable experience.  I work hard to earn my money, and every now and then I'd like to enjoy spending it.

So, what have we lost?  Well, it's not simply salesmanship that we're losing - it's a service culture, and more than that a joy in our work.  Clearly the employees in the places I visited this morning lacked any sense of responsibility, pride, and equally clearly they were not enjoying their work.  They didn't even seem to be working on any incentive system based on sales.  I am incredulous because I know it doesn't have to be that way.

Back when I was a student I worked in a soulless out of town shopping centre as a sales assistant for a major fashion retailer.  The hours were long and anti-social, the pay was rubbish, the staff facilities cramped, and taking all this into account it could have been an incredibly boring and unrewarding  job, but it wasn't.

Why not?

Culture.

Plain and simple.

The company used to train its staff using the Pike Place 'FISH' principle.  If you haven't heard of this, take a look at the video of the Pike Place Fish Stall at the Seattle Farmer's Market below.  The method is based on making work (and particularly sales work) fun, friendly and social for everyone.  The customer gets a better experience, the staff enjoy themselves and are motivated; it's a win-win.  I was not a natural at selling, but thrived in this environment where everyone had shared targets and we were incentivised as a team.

Where has this emphasis on service culture gone?  Certainly in our major retailers it seems to be lower and lower on the list of priorities.  It has driven me back to buying online in this case (I refuse to buy from a company that treats me badly), but I wonder also whether it offers an opportunity for independents.  Those who can, and want to, add value by training their staff well, providing the best customer experience and therefore helping people spend their money in the ways they want to.  I'll certainly be first in the queue...

In Praise of the Polymath

Image via CrunchBaseWe live in a society that worships specialism.  We look to our 'experts' for advice and to share their depth of knowledge in all fields.  Yet, anyone can describe themselves as an expert, or a guru, specialist, consultant etc etc.  What does this mean?  What are the qualifications you need to become an expert in something?  How can we separate the charlatans from the real deal?  Does a white beard, spectacles and tweed make you an expert?  Does a certificate that says you have been through a factory process of learning suffice?  Do the scars of battle gained through years of bitter experience give you the credibility you need? And why do we need experts - can't we just find all the answers on Wikipedia anyway?

I'm being facetious here, of course, and I know that we are dependent on specialists to move science and technology forwards.  They are the people that have made many of the things we take for granted in our world possible. However, as much as we need specialists, we also need those who have breadth of knowledge...and in a strange way, despite the great leaps we've made in terms of enabling access to information for the masses, it's the generalist that seems to be undervalued in society.

Our education system, for example, is a funnel designed to narrow and deepen your field of knowledge as you progress.  This channels us as learners to the point where, on completion of a PhD or post-doctoral research we may be the person in the world who knows most about the secret life of cardinal beetles, the etymology of lapidary terms, or the social impact of 'The Only Way is Essex'.  Noble causes all, I'm sure, and of course we need these specialists and their work chipping away at the coalface of human understanding, but we must take care not to idolise them.

Whatever it means to be an expert we know we need them, but sometimes seem to forget that we also need generalists.  We need people who can make connections between disparate fields to create new ideas and possibilities.  An education system predicated on the need to narrow and deepen knowledge may result in a society with extremely able scientists and technologists, but breadth of knowledge is, for me, equally likely to be the source of ideas for truly disruptive innovations.  The American college system seems to do this so much better than we do.  A liberal arts degree will give a student the freedom to explore human understanding in a way that is personally relevant and yet interconnected.  Here in the UK there are similar options available, but they are not the norm, and not valued as highly by some.  We seem wary of anything that does not lead our students on a path towards specialism because of the reverence with which we view the expert.

We can't all be polymaths of course, with a great deal of knowledge in a number of fields, but in a world where the tools to gain a breadth of knowledge are freely available to the vast majority of us we should be better at encouraging a broader view of learning. 

Steve Jobs - a Legacy Greater than Apple

It would be wrong to let today pass without writing something about the passing of Steve Jobs - a man who has, whether we own an Apple product or not, had a massive impact on all our lives.

Before I go on I should say that I'm not an Apple devotee - and tend to have pity on those disciples of Apple who treat the brand with such reverence that they think it can do no wrong.  I buy Apple products when I think they provide superior value, utility or delight, and buy other brands when I make a similar judgment. But, the very fact that this man created a brand that inspired such cultish and evangelical following is something that, as a marketer, I can't help but admire enormously. 

Steve Jobs has, of course, been the driving force behind the Apple brand, but the brand has a life beyond him, and that makes his work an even greater achievement.  What we see in Jobs is a man who had such drive, passion and vision that he drew people into his world; his sheer enthusiasm for his product was infectious in a way that the Apple product announcements by his successor a few days ago proved is going to be difficult to replicate.

In a bizarre coincidence I showed a video of Jobs in class yesterday, he was speaking in 1997 about what he believes marketing to be.  It's pure Jobs, stripping it all back to emotion.  'Marketing is about values' he says 'it is about passion':


I admire Steve Jobs as a marketer, a charismatic leader to the 'n'th degree, and I use the above clip in class as a discussion point, but I admire Steve Jobs more as a man who lived by his values, and to that end, the Jobs speech that inspires me most as a human being is the one below.

I believe this to be one of the best motivational speeches of all time, a must watch for all students.  Yes, Apple as a company may be a fantastic legacy for jobs, but this speech, for me, has equal (if not greater) value...


RIP Steve Jobs