Three Customer Types

As a direct selling agent, it’s really hard to find customers who are really willing to buy your product. And even if our boss motivates us with various channel management solutions, in the end it’s just really up to the customer to buy what we sell.

I remember there was a time when there was a seminar for direct sell agents in our office before any channel management solutions were done for us. The sales pitch instructor thought us that there are three types of customers in our channels, the first being the No-No person, the second being the Yes-No type and lastly the third being the Yes-Yes type of customer.

The No-No person is the variant wherein they already refuse the product on the mere sight of an agent selling it. It doesn’t really matter if you made a sales pitch at them or not, they’re either too busy to listen to you or their just not into the product to begin with. Ah, rejection. Some of us agents are really not into this selling business and if you’re going to add a lot of denial moments from customers, it’s really frustrating. I’m not surprised some of us quit the job.


channel partner strategy

The next one is the Yes-No type. These customers are the ones that are willing to buy but are eventually hindered to purchase the product because of some factors like lack of money or being too busy to stop by and acquire any item. On my part, sometimes I consider them to be time wasters as they usually make me talk about the product so much into persuading them only to say no in the end. Sometimes, though, I can turn them around to type three customers and when that happens, I feel kind of satisfied.

The last one is the Yes-Yes type. In my opinion, this is a rare breed of customer unless your product is the type that sells well on its own. I can comfortably say that I encounter these types only once a week. It’s really hard to find people who are actually interested in soaps and lotions and whatnot that an agent sells in malls or worse, in the streets or underpasses.

Being an agent is tough and it only becomes tougher if the management doesn’t do well for their selling arms. Thankfully, there are good people on the top of my company.