Tuesday, May 26, 2009

the badger approach

Having a good relationship with your customer and asking questions (intelligent questions and yes, I DO believe there is such a thing as a dumb question and so do you!) will help you be flexible.

A few years ago, a young lady I know wanted a set of steak knives being given away by a vacuum cleaner company. She agreed to the appointed time and said "I only want the knives". The salesman shows up and goes into his pitch without asking anything or paying attention to her house, which is very clean. He proceeds, without asking, to dump the proverbial small pile of sand on her light colored carpet. Knowing my friend, this probably started an immediate freak-out. To show the power of the vacuum, it took multiple passes to get most of it up which of course meant that he would never get the sale. If he had asked first, she'd have taken him to another room for his demonstration. Part of his sales process also was to stay in the house, conjuring up all sorts of sales talk for about 2 hours and handling of objections. Her husband finally came home from work, presented his business card (an attorney) and told the guy to get out. Do you think that salesman and company will EVER have something good said about it by this lady? Yet there are companies out there who practice this everyday - once you get face to face, stay there until you get the order.

Persistence is good. Insistence is perhaps ok but badgering harms everybody.

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