Who decides? The consumer with an attachment of emotion, or the empathetic salesperson who pushes va

While many factors contribute to that honour, the credit lies mainly on the crisp service of the competent employees of Changi. Such excellence may be the future of Sri Lanka too. Charisma Academy, the company contracted by the Government of Singapore to train around 160,000 people in Sales and Service, is now partnering with SOMEBODY, a Sri Lankan company aspiring to raise the bar of Sales and Service capabilities in the local market. 

Charisma Academy’s broad clientele like Credit Suisse, AIA, HSBC, Bank of Singapore, GFK, Roche, Parkway Hospital, NTUC, Singapore Airlines, FedEx and the Government of Singapore are testament to their understanding and capability in bringing significant competitive advantage to their value proposition.

Charisma Academy Head of Training Eric Feng visited Sri Lanka recently. He headed a brief but impactful breakfast forum for around 70 CEOs and corporate leaders on Friday 5 May at the Mont Blanc, Mövenpick Hotel. The focus of the day’s program was his latest book ‘The Future of Selling’, which engages sales leaders and trainers with insight into trends and practices in Asia. 

Feng brought to the table engrossing and varied topics on how to increase sales of a company. While most companies focus on how to sell their product, he pointed out that analysing why customers buy was more important. He noted a rising trend among CEOs in Asian companies to be directly involved in the selling process. To do so, they must look at it from the customer’s point of view, not their own, or the company’s perspective. Hence, it is useful to know the customer’s buying journey – from how they turn from satisfied to discontent to become actively in search of a product to make them satisfied again.

Once again highlighting the wrong approach of companies towards sales, Feng explained that appealing to the customer’s emotions rather than to their brains has been statistically proven to be significantly more impactful. Salespersons usually rattle off product details without emotionally connecting and building a relationship with their customers. “People buy people first. People buy on emotions, rationalise on logic, since emotions are after all the energy that drives motion,” he said.

Following Friday’s CEO Breakfast forum, several local companies have already engaged SOMEBODY to retain Charisma Academy expertise for their own organisations. Charisma Academy with a training presence and clientele in 16 markets across the Asia Pacific region has expanded to Sri Lanka through its official partner SOMEBODY. SOMEBODY is an associate company of The HR Consortium (THRC), an inventive, strategic human resource management company with an impressive portfolio of corporate clients built over the last six years.

Along the same line of thought, Feng opened the eyes of the gathering to the crucial difference between the customer saying, ‘I like you’ and ‘I am like you’ to a salesperson. This basically means that if common ground and similarities are found between the seller and the buyer, the more the customer will like and trust the salesperson. Building trust leads to higher sales.

Charisma Academy has a lot to offer to many a Sri Lankan company. It is clearly seen by the standards reached by the numerous international companies, after entering a partnership with them. While generic training programmes dull the keen talents of your people, Charisma Academy is a breath of fresh air and maybe the change the island needs. It all starts with managing people, for as Feng says, “To make a million dollars, you need to affect a million people.”

Get in touch with SOMEBODY – Email: [email protected], contact number: 0112 335 244, fax number: 0112 335 248, website: www.thrconsortium.com.