The Great Guns Marketing Blog

I have been running the company now for 13 years and  in that time I have bought a lot of services and products and have won a good number of clients for Great Guns. Over this period I have become more and more convinced that liking the person you buy from is a massive part of your decision making when appointing the supplier.

Of course the product/ service would have to tick all your boxes but in a highly competitive market it is becoming harder to differentiate between competitors. Therefore, having somebody you like selling to you is now a competitive advantage. I think this has always been the case but I’ve heard of plenty of companies that discount CVs based on whether a candidate has a degree and even go as far as to only interview from certain Universities. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a CV provided to me by an agency that rates the likeability of somebody, which perhaps isn’t surprising as this can be so down to personal preference. We are shortly going to be recruiting for our next Field Sales position and the skill I’ll be looking for in the person will be their natural ability to persuade me that they’re likeable.

Please don’t misunderstand me – this has to be a natural ability. Smarmy won’t do it; Spin won’t do it; and manipulating me with NLP mind tricks won’t work either. I’m looking for someone with a genuine good nature, good tone to their voice, kind eyes, cheeky smile and above all, someone who loves listening.  If you’re this person, please get in touch – I’d love to hear from you!

I am looking for a PA at the moment and so I am spending a lot of my time reading CVs and interviewing potential candidates. Interestingly, I am doing this at a time where a record number of applicants are trying to secure a place at university – which leads me to think about what is important to me in a potential candidate?

Certainly one of my major considerations for anyone that I employ here at Great Guns is that they are customer centric, meaning that they have that sense of urgency about them in making sure that we particularly deliver on our promises to clients/prospects. This usually seems to link up with individuals that have great people skills. Therefore people skills are always at the top of my tick list, no matter what job they are applying for! The customer touches every area of your business when they engage with you, the accountant, receptionist, PA and even IT at times. This gives us an opportunity to leave a great impression as they touch each point.

So, do you acquire better people skills if you have been to university? My view is probably no. I think people skills generally come earlier on in life. I think children that are exposed to a wide range of age groups and walks of life and who converse with adults and not just their peers respectively generally are more versatile in their conversation skills. Children that are encouraged to step outside of their comfort zones and ask questions usually develop more of an interest in the world around them and the opportunities available to them. I think this generally makes them more interested in their surroundings and more ambitious in their own personal achievements.

Therefore, university education for somebody who is self motivated and has a desire for academia (and the pocket to pay for it!) would only enhance their people skills and obviously their education and put them at the top of the pile for an interview line up.   Having said this, if somebody already has excellent people skills and chooses to go down an apprenticeship route it is my belief that not only will they achieve great skills and job experience but ultimately they won’t build up debt for themselves. Certainly these people in certain careers will be ultimately be favorable.

In my profession, experience definitely tops academic achievement. Especially as so much of what we do is about the ability to engage with people through all mediums whether we are representing ourselves or our clients. In the main our job is to get people to like us, and people buy from people! Of course it stands to reason that people skills means nothing if you can’t read and write or can back up what you say with real delivery but it’s not that difficult to get a good accountant or administrator but add great people skills to the job spec and you’ve got yourself a challenge.