Friday, November 04, 2011
Being an asset and getting paid for it
TheatreFace: They call it Show Business, and many of the job opportunities out there lie beyond the stage house. I interface with a wide variety of individuals in the course of my job as a consultant, and the one thing that I always look for are people that know their business, know their industry, and can communicate effectively about it. I attend numerous trade shows each year both as an exhibitor and as a potential customer. I get to hear a lot of sales spiels, tech-talk, and hyperventilating.
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6 comments:
I was at one point in my life a salesman. For three long years, I was a cellphone pusher. The industry changed so frequently that I hardly had a chance to keep up with everything that each product could do. Often I would have a "expert" come in to buy a product from me. Their main goal was to make me feel stupid because I didn't know the specs on a Samsung U340, but guess what..it didn't matter if I knew the product or not, they still bought it. Most customers know what they want. In our industry if you are calling to order some piece of equipment, you probably aren't window shopping. A good salesman knows the price, shipping time and what the product is called. The experts of our industry need to stay in the theatre. otherwise , it would be a huge waste of talent.
This article has some great points. I have had many of conversions with people that are representing a company and they have no clue what they are talking about but then you run into the person that knows exactly what they are taking about and you then realize that the company is really good and that you want to do business with them, the fact that if you can talk more then on language you are a large asset for the company. I know when I worked and people came in that where talking another language there was that one person that could talk to them and if that person was not there it would have been a total different story.
What's sad about this is the truth in it! Many salesmen have no clue what they're talking about, which is surprising. As a company, I would want to hire sales people that really know the products well and can relate to the people who are in the market to purchase them. It's funny that Taylor points out that most customers know what they want, though. I bet that's especially true for the entertainment industry. I still think that a customer would be likely to think less of a company to some degree based on a lack of knowledge on the part of their sales representatives, though. I just think it's not professional. But, like Taylor, I also think that our industry's experts should be out there working with and developing this technology instead of selling it.
Some people have said that people who really now their stuff should be working in theater not selling equipment. I agree with this but I think this article can be more about selling your company or yourself. If you are looking to get someone to hire or partner with you or the company you represent the best way to get that deal is to know your business and be able to show that knowledge. A person may know everything there is to know about a product but if they don't appear competent it doesn't matter. Although this is true of selling things I think it is more important for services than goods. In any business really not just theatre. I don't know about anyone else but I like my doctors to be confident in what they are doing, and not have to check with someone every 5 seconds. I'm sure everyone has their own example. Regardless of industry competent and confident is the way to get people to want to work with you.
Theres a reason that sales is a completely different department than IT. Sales people don't know the details of the specs, they don't know the intricacies of the item. The people who created and manufactured it do. The sales people know how to get their audience to buy the product. In the grand scheme of things, that is all that matters. We often see front of house personnel giving backstage tours to VIP patrons. These patrons don't know everything about the set, and they are usually informed of incorrect information. But they get the wow factor of the show, and are drawn into the "special treatment" factor of that process.
What is fascinating about the theater is that the artistic team is there to sell the show. They make it marketable and intriguing and compelling. The production staff is there to make it do-able. They are the IT department of a production, where-as the artists are the sales-people. Granted, sometimes the production staff do become sales people, but for the most part they don't.
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