Most people have little patience with salesmen and their approaches. They immediately want to know what you’re selling and the price.
Experienced salesmen know, through negative sales experiences, that it’s usually fatal to explain bluntly: ” I’m with the Simplenomics Corporation and I wanted to know if you could use one of our Simple machines. ”
Almost inevitably, the answer to that type of approach is ” No. ”
That’s why many successful salesmen no longer use business cards on their first approach.
Handing out a business card as the first look a prospect gets at your company or product is less than best. You give the prospect an easy way to pre-judge and reject you, your company and your product.
Most business cards are designed to tell the world about you, but you really need to tell the prospect what you can do for him. Immediately.
Handing him a white paper titled, ” 10 Simple Ways To Make Bigger Profits And Spend Less Doing It ” will grab much more attention than a business card with your name, email and cell phone number on it.
On the other hand, ” trick ” approaches, that tend to keep the prospect in suspense about the real reason you’re there, do nothing to disperse impatience or improve receptiveness.
Prospects want to know why you’re there and what you can do for them.
Salesmanship consists of giving prospects what they want…after leading them to want it.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Great point Mike. This stands in stark contrast to the Herb Tarlek type approach you wrote about in an earlier post (which I loved and linked to last week, because I’ve used the Herb comparison myself).
Salespeople who are uninterested in engaging a prospect, as opposed to “selling” a prospect, often make that mistake – IMHO. Shoving a business card at someone is a surefire indication that the person doing the shoving is pushy. Can’t get more metaphorical than that
Thanks Tony ! I saw your post, I subscribe to your RSS feed, and appreciate the link love.
Great point about the diference between the two approaches.
Gotta love it when someone’s point about your post is as good as the post was.
Keep linking’ and keep commentin’ !
Great post. I agree with the differences you pointed out. People are told to get business cards and pass them out to as many people without being of the negative effects. People don’t want to be given business cards all the time. When people ask me where to get business cards, I tell them go to http://www.mind2print.com because the prices are low and the quality is unbeatable. When they ask me what quantity to print, I say it depends on how much you plan on passing them out.
The answer is almost always the same. “I plan on passing them out as much as possible, to everyone, everywhere.” This is the wrong approach. You can easily turn off a perspective client by giving them a business card just because you’ve got so many. It’s hard to teach a person to sell themselves instead of the business. To express the reasons why they’re the best at what they do and give a business card toward the latter part of the conversation.
Great post. Keep it up.
Thanks PrintGuy.
You made some great additions to our conversation.
Keep it up.
Mike – Good move on the use of white papers. I might have a better title of course, one that is a bit more audience focused. – Mike
Hi Mike,
To be sure, a professional like yourself would spend hours pouring over titles for white papers, before letting it loose.
Alas, all I could muster up was one that barely beat out the poor lil business card by a whisker !
Easy to see I’ll never be your competitor … more likely a customer !
After reading this post I was reminded of those door-to-door magazine salesmen. They all have such oddly similar stories…
Anyway, what annoys me about them is that they don’t tell you why they are at your door or what they are selling. They ramble on and on, and continue talking after you have politely said goodbye three times and shut the door.
I would be much more receptive to this:
“Hello, my name is Spider. I am an ex-con involved in the Work-to-Life program which helps men like me get back on his feet by selling magazine subscriptions. Are you interested in looking at I have to offer?”
That way I know what he is offering to me up front. And I have a chance to say goodbye before he starts rambling.
I agree Aaron.
I’ve been getting calls (multiple) of late from Dish Network. I’ve been a customer for years and have every package known to man and don’t even watch TV !
Yet they still call several times a week to see if I want to sign up for new channels that haven’t been invented yet. And they always start talking fast, not giving me time to tell ‘em that i’m already a customer and have every channel they offer.