The world measures the success of sales people completely wrong.
At the heart of it, a sales person represents your business. If they are pushy and rude, people will label your business ‘pushy and rude‘ and visa versa. So a great sales person shouldn’t be measured on how many monetary sales they complete in a period of time, but rather how well they helped people find the right solution for what they were looking for. If a good sales person comes to the understanding that perhaps this particular customer’s need would be better catered for by somebody else and has to redirect that customer to the better option, that might be a loss of a sale at that particular moment, but a huge gain in trust in that sales person and the business they represent.
Selling requires empathy and the understanding of somebody’s needs. That person may have turned to you for help, but that doesn’t mean that what you make a profit from selling is the best answer for them. In the short term you may have lost a sale, but in the long run you’re building a reputation of being somebody that solves people’s problems – and that’s far more valuable if you plan to be in business for a while.