But selling actively
is selling proactively. Selling passively is order-taking, which isn't selling at all. The problem really must be that passive order-taking has become known as selling. Obviously the world of the salesperson has become too easy.
Another problem here is that proactive selling is actually impossible, since
proactive means "in anticipation of." So selling proactively would mean to sell something to somebody before they actually need it. I suppose that's what good salespeople endeavor to do.
No, that's "active" sales. Proactive sales would be bothering the crap out of your customers to buy stuff before they need it.
There are already two perfectly good words:
passive and
active. We don't need
proactive here. Make it go away.
"Oh my gosh, don't just drive actively. You must anticipate every curve and drive proactively."
~~ Paul
A nice response, Paul...but rather completely ignores everything I said.
You equate "active" with "proactive", and make its opposite "passive". However, if you read my post, you'll find that my argument is completely different. I contrast "proactive" and "reactive". Under
your definition ("active" and "passive"), what I term as "reactive" could be both passive
and active.
Let me illustrate.
I run a company that does corporate training, and I personally specialize in corporate culture and cross culture consulting. We have a new potential client that I am meeting with to try to sell them my product. Now, this is by definition "active" sales. I'm not just sitting there writing and order. I'm going out and selling my product, and competing with other vendors who are trying to sell their products. This is in no way a "done deal".
How, I have two approaches with I can take.
One is the "reactive" approach. That is, I prepare a basic, fairly generic presentation about my company's services, and what we can offer. I am then prepared, after I have finished that presentation, to field specific questions that the client may have, and to identify more clearly the specific uses they will have for my product. It is "reactive" because the majority of what I will say (answers to client questions, developing strategy based on client needs, etc.) is done
after I've done my presentation, as a
reaction to their specific questions.
The other is the "proactive" approach. I do a lot of research in advance, I find out as much information as possible about the company's current situation, why they are interested in our company's services, and what type of results they are looking for. Based on that, I develop a presentation that addresses those specific issues. I also do my best, based on this, to anticipate the questions that they are going to ask, and include the answers to those questions in my presentation -- so they will never need to ask them. By the time I'm done the presentation, if I've done a good job, most of their questions and concerns have already been addressed, and we can focus instead on finalizing the contract.
This has
nothing to do with being "passive" or "active"; both styles are "active". In my experience, by far the majority of sales presentations follow the former (reactive) style; but the latter (proactive) style consistently results in more sales.
sorry.