This is the phonesalesmans new theme song, “Satchel Full of Leads.” For those closers who rake in the dollars, for the marketer who makes the money, and the janitor who empties the trash. The music video speaks to us all.
Be The Solution
I met a great salesman when I went to buy my camera. I returned to the consumer electronics store, determined this time to have my camera no matter what the salesman told me. When I arrived there, I was surprised. The salesperson knew how to sell, and he was the solution to my problem. You should have seen his smile when I walked up… his perfectly straight teeth were yellowed slightly, and he smelled faintly of cigarette smoke. I was expecting another incompetent when I approached, so I was playing the part of a grumpy customer. That charade fell pretty quickly.
When I started telling him I wanted a deal because I had compared prices online, he stopped me with a wave of his hand. “Whoa whoa whoa. Let me see if I have it in stock.” He bent over behind the camera and pulled the last remaining camera out. This was great. I had been downtown to get a camera and a salesperson had forgot to check before they tried to sell it. He scanned the box. “Ahh. It’s on sale. The price is reduced.” There went my price objection. I said I was happy. I needed a memory card. He threw a few test offers at me to take advantage of my subject knowledge. “You said you wanted to do HD video, you know you need a high bandwidth memory card for that.” He pulled one out. “What’s the damage?” I asked, referring to the price. He grinned and slyly said “Oh it’s horrible.” Then he looked at his computer. “Oh not that bad, only 120$” I was expecting 50-75$. He directed me over to the racks of cards and I found a Vancouver Olympics special card, same bandwidth for 60$. Then he suggested I get a case.
He’s calmly leading me through the sales process, without getting excited, without getting distracted. He starts to ring them up. I tell him about the other salesmen, we laugh together. Then an asian woman comes up and he shakes his head at her. “You seem to buy a camera every other week!” She laughs loudly, I can tell she’s a fan. He has built a community in his store.
I buy the package deal with the maintenance and warranty plan, and tell him I think he’s a great salesman. He then walked me to the front of the store, past the lineups of people, and tested the bag on the security system. “Looks good!” he exclaimed, and shook my hand. “If you need any help with that camera you just ask….those other salesman.” he laughs. “Nah, you can ask me. Have a great day!” Finally, a salesman who makes the process of buying something joyful, which is really what advertisers want to happen.
“The great book “Predictably Irrational” says social psychology tests have shown we have two different sets of rules: social mindset and market mindset.
Social mindset is warm and fuzzy social human nature: helping friends, being a good generous person, doing what’s right.
Market mindset is strictly business: being paid for time and effort, competition, you get what you pay for, and cost/benefit analysis.
Introducing money into a social relationship switches it to market mindset, changing the entire relationship, making all the warm-and-fuzzy go away.”
In this incredible post, Brian, a good friend of mine, demonstrates how he improved the profits.. of a bum on a busy street. He uses an idea called split testing to improves a bums profits. Split testing is a very important factor in sales that allows you to make distinctions between different methods of attracting customers and making the sale. A/B Split-tests can destroy your weaknesses and highlight your strengths, so whenever you have a good idea, test it, then compare it. Quite the difference from giving change or a sandwich, his donation of time and ingenuity improved this mans livelyhood.
A quick to-do list of 31 items to improve the strength of your finances. A good way to build post-tax financial strategy.
Power vs. Force
I went into a local office supply store today in search of a digital camera. I had done all my research online, and knew precisely what I wanted. I stepped into the store, because on redflagdeals.ca someone has pointed out a higher end model was priced down. Although this was across the country, I thought maybe they might have a similar in store sale. I walked in and a manager waved and smiled at us. He said “Hello, are you looking for anything today?” I replied that I was looking for a SX10 of the Canon Powershot series. Before we could continue, out of nowhere came “novice salesman”.
“WE DON’T HAVE IT! I’ve never even heard of that model name before!”
I picked out a model with a similar name, the SX120.
“Well here’s the SX120” I offered.
“We put that out on the floor this week” he said, as if that excused his lack of product knowledge. “That’s the only one we have of that line.” I pointed at an SX20. “There’s the SX20” I said, talking to myself by now, as I realized the salesperson was clueless.
“Why don’t you continue with your other customers” suggested the manager, to shoo away this salesperson from making a bad experience. I smiled, thinking this was done with and turned back to the cameras with my girlfriend. One foot behind us, came the novice salespersons voice.
“THATS AN AMAZING DEAL.” we ignored him.
“THATS SUCH AN AMAZING DEAL” he claimed again. First, he doesn’t even know that he has this model, now he’s expecting to sell it to us on price? I turned to him. “I don’t need your help. I’ve done my research.” my girlfriend and I turned around to shut him out with our body language. He was making us uncomfortable. He wasn’t done however.
He said “You should buy the blah blah blah model, it’s my favourite camera for 899$ IT’S AN AMAZING DEAL.” We were looking at cameras in the 200-300 range, and he comes out of left field with completely clueless jibber-jabber, not perceiving that we have wants or specifications in mind.
The novice salesperson was high energy, forceful and persistent. All good qualities of a salesperson. Why did we feel so uncomfortable? He had no product knowledge. He did not apologize for his mistakes. He claimed to know everything. He was blind to our needs and obsessed with himself, yet completely unaware of his behavior. He tried to force a sale for the largest commission possible, and ended up ruining our perception of the sales ability of the store.
Next we went to a consumer electronics store to go over the camera models they had there. After we had spent some time with the products, a salesperson started making small talk. The products were displayed from price, low to high, so a salesperson could get a good feel for where the clients budget was before even talking to them, simply based on where they stand. I had picked up a Canon SD980, which had great reviews online.
The salesperson got me talking about why I had picked up that camera while at the same time displaying his product knowledge about the Canon line. This one however, despite being charming and having product knowledge, lost the sale as well. He stopped selling the Canon I had been considering, and tried to upsell on a newer camera model by Sony. A company that is not as well respected in cameras. It had more doodads and bigger numbers, like 1080HD. He had us come around the display rack to watch full HD videos on youtube, and was doing full panorama shots. Good for ‘wow’ factor, and probably the reason why he chose to sell it. The camera salesman did mentioned it’s weakpoint on colours compared to the Canon, which to me felt like a hedge if we don’t fall for his smooth talk and decided to walk out with the canon instead. This was fair. Where he failed though, was on trying to sell something I didn’t want. I mentioned I had done research online. Had he focused on the benefits of the Canon camera I had picked out, he would have maybe been successful.
Both these salespeople tried to force the sale by pressuring with their persuasion skills. One was amateur, the other professional, but they both failed because they missed out on the most powerful persuasion force around. The power of an individual to persuade themselves.
Steve Martin has written a brief overview of how he made it in show business. From awkward stand-up jokes to his physical absurdity that sky-rocketed the success of his career in comedy. Being funny is important to a salesperson too. Jokes pave the way to bonding and activate the pleasure centres of potential clients. The article is a quick read but really enjoyable. Make sure to check out the video of his return from exile on the Johnny Carson show.
I’m going to be picking up his book “Born Standing Up”. A quick flip through his book today revealed his early life. He got to where he was today with a childhood fascination for magic tricks. Darn’ impressive banjo playin’ and a unique perspective from one wild and crazy guy!!!!
