best salespeople are more sophisticated than that stereotype. The best ones, in my experience, are strategic thinkers on behalf of the customer and love solving their problems and helping them become successful (in fact, there is a particular sales technique, where the salesperson focuses on addressing a customer problem more generally rather than just pushing a particular product, known as solution selling). Further, effective salespeople are great listeners, and that doesn’t just benefit the customer: the insight a salesperson brings back to the company is invaluable. Some companies find the
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