Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The Human Touch

by Thomas Sim, 28 Oct, 2000

Meeting people and handling customers for 7 years taught me to see a few common characteristics of human behaviours. Among them, I classified into 5 distinctive behaviours, with priority in decreasing order:

1. Greed
2. Selfishness
3. Ego-ism
4. Kia Su-ism
5. Laziness

If a salesman can work on the above elements with a problematic customer, the outcome can be very helpful in a sale closing. In our daily communication with friends, family members and even strangers or customers, the ability to handle the above elements can be of enormous help.

Why Greed is the No.1 threat to us? Because it cost us a lot - in monetary term or the amount of time consumed. If you see greed in your customer, that is very good! The last things to do is to explain your product, just offer a good price. He will probably bite!

Selfishness at time can be good, but ask yourself, can you tolerate a selfish person? I think a lot of people would rather have an egoistic friend than a selfish friend. Our customers can be selfish in many ways, an example is that he wants to be the sole distributor - nobody should be doing the same business!

Ego is in every one of us, and don't deny that! To have some of it is good because it means you respect yourself very much. Of all, ego is less when a person become enlightened by knowledge and business dealings - for you want business so customers are always right. An egoistic customer is a problem many times, if you are ego yourself.

Kia-Su is a Singaporean phenomenon but it is part of us, in you and me - like the Singaporeans. Having it is like aiming higher and higher, so why is it bad? The danger is to compare yourself with others. Don't forget, everyone has one's own limit. You can't be a supermodel forever! A good thing to do is know your limits and be sure of your capability. However, Kia-Su is good for your customers, because they buy to show off but make sure there won't be trade returns! In this instance, feature and benefits are not important considerations!

Lastly laziness. Sounds common enough? But why it is the last I put here? The reason is because I think it is good for a healthy soul. In life, if nobody is lazy, who is going to make money out of them? There must be someone lazy of making coffee that so many kopitiams are crowded. However, if you meet lazy people in business dealings, they are lazy in making decisions. If allowed, we have to make decision for them.

A good soul should have minimal of the above, to be happy and enlightened!

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