Page 92 - 914INC - Q2 - 2013

LTinda Ruggiero AVON o be successful in sales, you need
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to “gear your approach around your strengths and weaknesses,” says Linda Ruggiero. “The same approach doesn’t work for every salesperson.”
And she should know. In the eight years since Ruggiero began selling Avon products, she has risen to become a senior executive unit leader (the company’s highest leadership level), with a team of some 375 reps countrywide, 300 of whom are based in Westchester. Ruggiero’s team generates between $30,000 and $50,000 in sales every two weeks, total- ing roughly $1 million annually.
The approach Ruggiero used to get to this level isonethatsuitsherpersonalityperfectly,shesays.“I love talking to people. I’m not thrown off by walk- ing up to potential customers and engaging them in a discussion,” explains the New Rochelle resident.
Ruggiero started by pounding the pavement. “I would hit all the supermarkets, dry cleaners, and Laundromatstohandoutmybrochuresandletthem know I was selling Avon,” Ruggiero explains. Even today, with a broad customer base and a large team of sellers, she is not content to just sit back and earn commissions. She still goes out in the field with team members each week to drum up new business.
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I’m aggressive with my
business, but I’m not an aggressive salesperson.
By first creating and finding a niche between myself and the client, it makes them feel more comfortable.
The Hartsdale resident has no patience for foot-in-the-door sales tactics that frustrate custom- ers and contribute to the aforementioned bad rap for the industry. There is no point in promising a customer something you can’t deliver (like, say, a fully loaded, top-of-the-line Jeep Grand Cherokee for $200 a month) just to get people into the dealer- ship, Forgione insists. “If I tell a customer I can sell them a car for a certain amount, that has to be the truth. I can’t say that over the phone and then tell them something different when they come to our
showroom,” he explains. “That approach never works.”
Instead, the self-professed “total people person” uses his natural conversational skills—honed by chatting up customers in the diner his parents owned when he was growing up in Cairo, New York—to develop a bond that goes beyond the transaction at hand. Finding a shared interest—whether skiing in the Catskills, rooting for the Yankees, or complaining about Westchester’s high property taxes—
goes a long way to closing the deal.
“By first creating and finding a niche between myself
and the client, it makes them feel more comfortable,” Forgione says. “Then, I’ve earned that trust and they know I’m being honest when we start discussing
our vehicles.”
With a repeat/referral business rate of nearly
85 percent, his approach clearly makes sense. Says Forgione: “Doing the right thing with a customer the first time is the best way to get
them to come back.”