Heo Kuen-haeng, a senior auto consultant at Kia, poses with the carmaker's Seltos SUV after winning the carmaker's title of grand sales master at the Kia360 brand experience center in Seoul, Thursday. Courtesy of Kia

Heo Kuen-haeng, a senior consultant at Kia, advises aspiring salespeople to have a deep understanding of regional characteristics for the sustainable growth of their careers.

He recently joined the ranks of the carmaker's grand sales masters after achieving accumulated vehicle sales of more than 4,000. Heo started working at Kia in 1996 and has annually sold 139 cars on average for 29 years. He is now the 31st grand master of Kia.

Heo is based in Cheonan, the most populous city of South Chungcheong Province. The region is also home to many industrial complexes of major conglomerates, including Samsung SDI. The city also has a highly populated residential area.

“I adopted a strategy of selling all the vehicles, including ones for corporate use and typical sedans or SUVs for general customers,” Heo said in a telephone interview, Sunday.

Each region has unique characteristics from a sales perspective, requiring salespeople to adjust their strategies based on the target region, according to Heo.

“For instance, demand for rental cars is high on Jeju Island and other popular tourist cities, so salespeople need to come up with different strategies there,” he said.

This is why Heo decided not to focus on selling specific vehicles in his territory, but opted to become an all-round sales player.

“Vehicle demand from big companies and their secondary vendors remain solid, but my target demand also includes regular customers, as the population of Cheonan is over 600,000, which accounts for more than 30 percent in the same province.”

He also picked his consistent attitude as another core strength that has driven his robust sales performance.

“I try my best to make my customers feel treated well,” he said. “This is the general response from my customers after they talk with me. My sales attitude or mood never goes up and down. I have kept a similar attitude for almost three decades of my entire career.”

The attitude gives more returns to him than in the past due to prevailing individualism, according to him.

“People are getting more hard-hearted, and care less for others,” he said. “This can be an opportunity for salespeople, as their kind and amicable attitude shines more at this period of an increasingly hostile society.”

Heo also displayed hopes to win the title as a great master after reaching 5,000 total vehicle sales in the near future. Great master is the highest honor given to salespeople based on sales figures.