A recent day on-road with a beauty rep reminded me of a type of rep that frequents our industry – The Caller. Harmless and gentle, they mean well but just can’t get past their desperate habit of “calling” …

Never heard of them, you say? Then let me share…

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While doing cold calls, we crossed paths with The Caller. Even from outside the salon, we could hear her haunting our next client and unnerving her with constant call-outs – “Are you right for…? Do you need any…? We now have stock of… On special this week is…This month’s deal is on … Buy x and get y.”

On her departure, the salon owner sheepishly shared how uncomfortable the experience had been, and that it wasn’t the first time it had happened.  Never once had the rep stopped to ask about the business, what the owner bought, let alone who does the buying.

But what was saddest to hear, was that the salon owner knew only too well that the particular company always sends out reps like that, and that this one wouldn’t last any longer than the others…

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This sales style is one of five identified within our industry: it’s ‘The Caller.’

Traditionally, The Caller is a newbie to the industry, representing a company that has a large portfolio of products or they’ve had no sales training and are simply walking into salons and “Calling” out products, hoping to get an order – any order!

Quite often they’re selling a commodity, usually using price as their only differentiator.

Rarely do they build a relationship with clients, nor do they have reliable sales results.

Generally, the Caller sits at the lower end of your sales team and has a poor sales success ratio of around 5%

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So let me ask you, how many “Callers” do you have in your sales team?