Patrick Almendarez
Service Marketing
10/29/2014
For this certain project paper, I interviewed a colleague from my mother’s job. Her name
was Bobbie Moreno. Her position is the outside sales manager for an HVAC company located in
Sugar Land. When doing the interview I was surprised on how energetic she was to answer the
list of questions I had for her. The reason being was she said that “more people need to know the
end’s and outs of sales, rather than just thinking we take people to lunch.” I started off by asking
Mrs. Moreno the type of work schedule she maintains as a head sales manager. She started off by
saying that being in sales is a never ending job. Within the interview she repeated that sales are
not a typical 9-5 job. She is constantly e-mailing colleagues, business partners, customers
throughout the day and night. With her job title being outside sales manager, she is constantly
traveling to different customer sites whether they are local or out of town. One of the main
questions that I really wanted to ask Mrs. Moreno was, what are the key factors are in a good
sales agent? Mrs. Moreno looked at me and said well by the time I am done with this interview
you will know the keys to my success and come and try and get my job. Mr. Moreno said that
there were three traits that I had to follow to be any type of successful in this field. She said
optimism was essential. If you don’t have it, this job will eat you alive. She said that you will rise
and fall in sales. One day you could sell out of your product and the next month you could have a
surplus of your product, but by having optimism you will find out that at the end of the day,
everything will be alright. The second trait she said was focus. A person with focus is internally
driven to accomplish goals and can stay attentive to one topic. Focused individuals are more
demanding of themselves than other people and they are self-motivated. They are able to
organize themselves and recognize what needs to be done in order to achieve their goals. When
Mrs. Moreno told me those words I could see the passion she has for her job and understood why
she is a successful as she is. The last trait she told me was empathy. A salesperson showing
empathy can gain trust and establish rapport with customers by being on their side and not
appearing judgmental. Empathy allows the salesperson to read the customers, show concern, and
clearly demonstrate his or her interest in providing a proper solution. As you can see Mrs.
Moreno clearly puts all three traits together and makes a great sales agent. She attracts people
towards her with her skills and making the customers come to her rather than her going to them.
One of the main questions I wanted to ask Mrs. Moreno was what strategy you use to get new
