Confessions of a Planet Sales Person

As those of you who frequent The Planet forums know, I made the move from marketing to sales nearly one month ago. I’d like to share some interesting insights and observations I’ve gained since joining this team.

When I first arrived in sales I got a little training from my fellow team members, mostly watching how they handle live chats and the phones. Our sales folks are on commission, so taking the time to help me is not good for their bottom line. Even though I’ve known some of the sales team members a long time, and I shouldn’t have expected anything different, I was surprised to discover that it didn’t matter. They wanted to help make their new team member great and were willing to sacrifice their time selling to show me the ropes.

I also worried about how different the sales organization might be from the one I “grew up” in at EV1Servers. We had a saying at EV1, “The sales department doesn’t sell servers, the Web site sells servers.” So we acted as more of a consultative sales team than one that had any sort of interest in whether or not you chose to purchase.

We have a vested interest in whether or not you order the right server and the best way to serve our customers’ needs.

You may be asking yourself why you need a sales representative when we have a shopping cart that allows you to pick your server and customize it to your heart’s content? We have a fabulous shopping cart, and I know all of you are perfectly capable of ordering your own servers. You’re obviously brilliant since you’ve selected The Planet as your dedicated server provider. Regardless of how fabulous our shopping cart is, it may be helpful to have someone on the inside with your best interest at heart when ordering your server.

We may know about a promotion you may not be aware of. Just 15 minutes before I began writing this blog, I told a customer about the Free Fall promotion and saved him $50 on his control panel and setup fee. Plus he got some cool free extras, just because he stopped to ask whether or not cPanel supports unlimited domains.

And , it doesn’t cost you a dime. You pay the same setup and monthly fee whether a sales representative helps you or not. But we can’t help you fulfill the same server needs for less, or customize a server that’s perfect for you, unless you give us a call, send us an e-mail, or talk to us in chat.

When you’re ready for your next order, we’ll be happy to help you. My teammates and I hope to hear from you soon!

- Brooke

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 5:00 am and is filed under The Planet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.