OK are you a control freak?
Do you run on a lot of anxious energy?
Are you a natural problem solver?
Are you smart?
Are you able to learn something inside out and from all angles?
Are you a good listener?
Are you good at putting your personal point of view across?

Yes i am an aspie who works in sales and retention. I not only love it but I am great at my job.
You know those sales people around that talk fast and emotively and nervously and try to confuse you and force products on you?
What about those ones that are all fake laugh and smiles?

I am not like that.

Customers with me get me as long as they need. I am deliberate mono-toned (customers have told me i have a voice made for radio. Not sure whether that is necessarily good but the last customer saying this gave me details for http://www.radio1rph.org.au/ and suggested i volunteer here, still considering it), gentle, knowledgeable and honest about all I say and do, and will not back customers into doing anything they are unhappy with. Do not get me wrong I am very confident in my products but just not pushy.

The irony is that my approach though slow and results in me seeing less people than others in my team, my turnover rate is far higher. The Managers see the merit in my approach and let it go and actively encourage me (rather than perhaps hold them out as an example for others)

I am in a niche specialist team set up for retention of customers. But i also cold call customers too and balance my own workload.

Whatever could be said for how terrible a sales job will be for Aspies, I would not swap it. It certainly has challenges and I suspect any job will (and that a sales job is not necessarily for everyone) but it really has some pluses too
.
Do not think that any particular job is unfriendly to Aspies on basis o one or two aspects. (one or two aspects you can probably overcome or accomodate)

3 years in and i know it back to front too and that I like.

At the moment we are down on a particular product in sales and they have bought in our specialist team to help out the inbound call team. End of financial year looming and it is looking like it is not a matter of how much short they will fall of target but how much and who they will take it out on when they do. I can see a few people not getting bonuses this year.

So anyhow they have included us in two competitions. They normally leave us out. It is for May and June. I am almost tripling third place in the comp for the highest sales and for the other comp which is random draw, I have 50% of the entries in that one. July could be a good month.

Sales. Who'd have thought?

Clearly I have never mixed my drinks and have not chosen the bourbon and coke and vodka chaser. I have no memory of drinking bourbon and coke and vodka shots. None at all. So don't ask.

Oh...you didn't...

Well you figured out who the customers are and what they want.  Isn't that the whole deal?  

I am guessing that you are dealing with a professional specialist area and not the general public.  

I could never do sales by standing in a mall offering a prize for people to sign up for a service.  I could maybe sell scientific equipment.

Yes i am dealing with the general public and no i am not in a mal and certainly not holding up signs.

You are right it is the whole deal, but I think in this instance my particular skill set, experience and neurotype actually work with me and for my benefit.

For retentions (retaining customers from leaving the company) there is a great need for emotional detachment, confidence in approach and opinion, information seeking, listening skills, knowledge of the products and the market, calm and monotoned soothing voice and ability not to emotionaly invested (different from emotional detachment - one suggests from the outset and the other depends on not getting drawn in)

Now all other things aside, does this sound like what you have read of me and do you think hat these traits are not completely untranslatable into an aspie neurotype. (no i am not trying to have a go or what have you, I am just trying to show you and other's a different ide of the - "Oh you are aspie you will not be able to deal with people at work because that will be too confronting" - and a lot of people will say this and exclude this as a consideration)

As for sales, suprisingly a lot of the same things apply though the focus is a lot different. Wit retentions the customer is considering taking existing products away and in sales they are considering whether to take up products.
The focus in retentions is to acknowledge the complaint and reasoning and not to bullshit customers but to resolve issues and to "tweak" your services or products as much as you can within the realms of your procedures to the best tailored approach for the customer and with sales it is about listening completely and tailoring on limited information the best product to the customers needs and being thorough in investigative researching questions before pitching and movingthem along the trail of the sale as smoothly as possible. As best they should ring up and be soothed and happy with you every step of the way and have every piece of useful information gently pised from them and given them a solution that seems both reasonable and acceptable to them and then guided into a sales close and terms and conditions signed up and pleasantries before they finish with you and going away feeling good.

Counselling it is, for me. Who would have thought THAT? 13 years, so far.

I provide a service to others

Am admittedly not a business person ( but have been self-employed for 40 years)

I consider myself to be talent only. Have been called arrogant in attitude.

I do enjoy the work part of the job.

As to jobs most people would think we wouldn't do, I loved teaching little kids. Lots of noise was a downside, but lots of acceptance and laughter was an upside.  Plus I could get as messy as I liked, covered in finger-paint and sand and playing duck-duck-goose with a big circle of twenty five four year olds, and the parents would smile benevolently as they dropped off their child who'd run to me happily to show me a grasshopper they'd found or just to give me a sticky hug.  I think a lot of people get confused by the fact that aspies are just as individual as anybody else and have individual tastes, strengths, likes and dislikes.  We are certainly not one-size-fits-all!  

Like Bloke, I've done some sales, but didn't really like it.  Before preschool teaching, I used to gravitate a lot to jobs that required a high level of paper communication, in libraries and offices.  My hyperlexia was a huge aid in those sorts of positions.  But always, I've had problems with the social side when dealing with most adults.  They spend such a lot of time talking about inconsequential matters, which I've always felt was a huge waste of time.  And because I'd get on with things, like Bloke, I had a lot of work done in the same amount of time.  Which didn't endear me to my fellow workers, even though I have to say I was just doing my job and not at fault, as far as I can see.  They could have done the same amount if they didn't stuff about gossiping about the latest whatever-it-was that was holding their interest.  

Alison

This post was last modified: 05-19-2012 02:12 AM by Alison.

^Yeah, teaching kids is great. I might do different things with them than you do, but it is a lot of fun. I wish that were the job I got paid for (then I wouldn't have to do the other one).

So did you know "sales" before you got this job?  How did you learn?  

I had been told that I knew the area but I didn't know "sales" so I could not get the job.

Wow, Bloke - that's great!! Is there a prize for the top sales people? Knock em dead!!!

Yup an Acer Tablet for the first one. I need to hold them off for 5 weeks.
A motorola Mobile for the second. Good chance there too.
No doubt the guys will lift and I do not intend to rest on my laurels

It also is nice to have that distinction when one is in an annual review. A smart company would increase the percentage of commissions for top performers since it is also an attractive addition to one's resume.

I keep telling myself that I need to back off AFF so I can take care of more business in the 'real world', but maybe I need to hold off until July...

Yes, that's true: you've out-posted me in just 2,7 years.

This post was last modified: 05-19-2012 08:33 PM by Shnoing.

In your job the work bit involves making other people look good. After 40 years of improving the confidence of other people I think you're allowed to be a little arrogant!

Really? I gotta go to AFF anonymous. I had stopped for a while, but I guess I relapsed pretty bad this time.

I do want to cheer Bloke on though....