The friend of the son of a very good friend — an exceedingly polite young man just out of high school — came by late Friday afternoon to sell me some cutlery. I explained when he called to set the appointment that I was already doing some business with the company he was representing in the form of monogrammed house-warming gifts, but he said he’d like to come by anyway. To practice.
He arrived, carefully unsheathed his samples, and pulled out a three ring binder. He opened his presentation with a hand drawn graph of his progress toward his summer goal; if reached, he said, he would win a scholarship. Then he launched into a rote monologue, cribbed nearly verbatim from his notes. Per the script he handed me each utensil as he talked about it, wasn’t sure what to do with his hands after I refused the third one, and was flustered when I asked about something out of turn. All the sales-guy 101 feints were in play: “If you could choose between one of the two sets today, which would you pick?”; “Just for sitting down with me today, I’m authorized to offer you, for no extra cost, these kitchen shears. Is that something you’d be interested in?”
At which point I stopped him. I’ve sat through thousands of presentations and delivered thousands more. I didn’t need another to confirm what I’ve known forever: I hate sales. And salespeople.
So I waxed parental:
“Why, David, didn’t you ask what I was already using, what about it I liked and didn’t? Turn your head: five feet away is a full set of Wusthof; you should have known that before you came to the door. Why didn’t you ask about the sets I was already buying? Clearly there has been a need.
“Selling isn’t about glib one liners, happy hour entertaining or pat answers to pre-conceived objections. It’s considerably less about form than substance. It’s about having the knowledge and developing the trust in order to fill the real needs of your customers, better than anyone else.” LOVE parental mode.
Since this has a lot to do with how we approach our profession and since Michael, Greg and Brian are only the last three on BHB to have written about it, here’s what I told him:
Sell the right product at the right price. It may have worked once, but if your client base is Eskimo you don’t look for a line of snow to represent. Even if your sleight-of-hand is sufficient to accomplish the sale, the ill feelings on the back end negate everything. In real estate? See here.
Know your product backward, forward, up, down and sideways –AND your competitions’ product the same way. (Reading from crib sheets doesn’t count.) That way you give spontaneous and substantive answers to questions, the better to help your customers make the right decisions. See here.
And most importantly:
Learn the difference between ACTING like you care about your customers and ACTUALLY caring. That one thing changes everything. Actually caring means thoroughly knowing customer needs and adapting to them, not expecting them to adapt to yours. See here.
When I was done David thanked me for the advice, glanced down at his binder and said: “While I’m packing up, would you mind jotting down the names and phone numbers of three to ten people you think might be able to use CutCo? I’d really appreciate it.”
David intends to major in math.
Good.
Brian Brady says:
Gotta love David’s tenacity at the end.
August 13, 2007 — 11:39 am
Michael Cook says:
How much sadder would it have been if David were 10 years into his sales career? I have seen it and I can say it is much, much sadder.
August 13, 2007 — 12:53 pm
John C says:
Nice pointers to the kid, but I admire his willing to try sales at such an early age. I wish I had started that early, because experiences like that would have been learned at age 20 instead of 30.
August 13, 2007 — 7:01 pm
Chuchundra says:
I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners (Sorry, the Kirby Home Maintenance System) for several months back in 1985. I can’t say I made much money, although I did sell six units, but the experience of actually going into peoples homes several times a day and trying to get them to buy a $989 vacuum cleaner was invaluable.
I think you’re being far too hard on David. He’s an ambitious young man and he’s trying hard. Most people aren’t born salesmen, but it certainly a teachable skill. I’m sure that CutCo didn’t spend much time actually teaching him, they just threw him out there, just like my Kirby distributor did to me. Their philosophy is that if you throw enough crap against the wall, something’s got to stick.
August 13, 2007 — 8:48 pm
Brian Brady says:
“Most people aren’t born salesmen, but it certainly a teachable skill. ”
Nobody is a born salesman, Chuch. It’s ALL learned. That Kirby experience had to have been a great one for you.
August 13, 2007 — 9:17 pm
J. Ferris says:
I agree and disagree with everyone all at the same time. I do seem to love a good paradox. This story reminds me of my then 18 year old cousin (he’s 19 now) attempting to sell me pre-paid legal services. I think most people who are selling for the very first time are guided by Hollywood stereotypes of salespeople and more applicable to both yours and my situation, the salesperson is a young, fresh out of high school guy who is just doing this sales bit to make money for the next two months before college starts so they don’t really care. Sales has and always will be a long term investment into education and networking. I started in this business when I was 18, fresh off an 8 month job at Best Buy in home theater sales, and most of these cheap sales tactics were still being taught by the real estate companies I had interviewed with. I spent eight months (things happen in eights for me I guess) with a certain yellow and black big box real estate company before leaving and going with an internet real estate company. After four and a half years with them I left and created my own company. The point is that there are a lot of different perspectives, ideas and tactics — all of which work with varying degrees of success but no one teaches the absolute right, logical and accessible way to doing sales because it requires too much effort and time invested. Given that CutCo is training transitional students (high school -> college) they likely already know that there is no point in training these kids to do it the right way if they won’t be around long enough for CutCo to reap the fruits of their labor. If you want to become a better salesperson then you need to read, read, read, take classes and of course the most obvious — read Bloodhound Blog.
August 23, 2007 — 4:43 am
Mike says:
I have never seen Real Estate as a sales job. Except for the part where you sell the client on yourself, but that is more like an interview. Our job is marketing and negotiating. The idea that we sell houses like cars and TV’s almost absurd. In Oregon, the buyer has so many ways out that if you really tried to “sell” them, once your influence wore off they would walk.
This is a service industry and that main service is to protect them. I know some less than stellar agents that have sold homes breaking every rule of marketing and common sense. If it is priced right that is the main criteria. Helping them understand the rest of the process is our charge.
November 2, 2007 — 8:25 pm