Once upon a time, in the not so distant past either, sales was a numbers game. Selling X number of product A and Y number of product B in a given period equalled happiness. Then came the idea of targets and weightings. Woe betide anyone who sold the wrong mix of products; it was no use protesting that customers simply didn’t want to buy an ISA or an ice lolly just after Christmas, if you didn’t meet your target  you were in trouble!

In a drive to increase sales still further, businesses began to introduce ideas such as cross selling and up selling; persuading people to buy polish to go with the shoes they were purchasing or a different package with added features. Add in the science of product placement and the psychology of customer interactions and those engaged in sales started to operate in a multilayer complex environment.

Is there anything wrong in that? Well the answer is both yes and no and the difference is down to approach. You see, when you deploy all of these various techniques in the pursuit of sales it can be all too easy to lose sight of the fact that your customers are real people with real needs. It’s also all too easy to start to see your people merely as conduits, delivering the sale in accordance with a prescribed formula, with little or no autonomy.

Stop selling, start engaging

But the world is changing and whilst all the selling techniques which you have used in the past may still be relevant, they have to be delivered in a new way. Consumers are getting wise to the hard sell and the rise of the millennial and generation Z into the marketplace has created a demand for a new way of interaction, one which is personal and which seeks to deliver genuinely innovative solutions. These customers don’t want to be sold to, they expect to have a say in product design and development alongside a genuine relationship with the organisation.

In turn, employees are increasingly uncomfortable at having to march to the targeted drum. They too are looking for new ways and new interactions, building a personal relationship with customers and only delivering products and solutions which will genuinely meet customer needs. And the simplest way for businesses to step towards the new imperative is to start building genuine employee engagement.

When you have engaged employees they buy into the strategy and aims and values of the organisation. More than that, because they are engaged they actively seek to further those aims. Because they care about the organisation they look to build genuine relationships with customers, in the process boosting sales. And because they are engaged with the organisational strategy they look to innovate, to build genuine solutions which resonate more deeply with customer requirements, boosting sales still further.

In fact, with engaged employees at your side targets almost become obsolescent as the customer relationship becomes stronger and the organisation’s reputation grows. That’s not to say that techniques such as cross selling and up selling should be ditched, it’s just that rather than being a targeted imposition, they form part of the genuine desire to do the best for the consumer. Do you want to sell, or do you want to engage? One is of the past whilst the other sets businesses on the path to delivering a strong and profitable future.