Do you have any customers that you call on that won’t sit still ? Do they move around the room ? Around the jobsite ?
Do you sell them anything ? Probably not.
That’s their defense mechanism against buying from you.
What can you do about it ? You have two or three choices as I see it.
1) Use some kind of prop to make them be still. Make it necessary for them to sit at a table or desk. Use a visual aid of some kind and invite them to sit down and look at it.
If they won’t, don’t waste your time and talent on them, as they just don’t have enough respect or guts to tell you the truth about why they’re not buying from you.
2) Refuse to start your presentation until they agree to sit still long enough for you to finish. Tell them you’ll make another appointment if you have to, but that you’ll f=refuse to do a bad job of presenting, as the product deserves better and so do they.
3) Try and get them interested in your presentation by talking about them and how they’ll use this product or service to become famous, rich or retired.
Do not, under any circumstances, chase ‘em around and do a halfass job of presenting.
Go to their competitor and make ‘em sorry they wouldn’t listen to you.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow. This entry blows me away. According to your logic, because my severe learning disability means I must walk and move around to *process information*, I don’t “deserve” your “talent” and “intelligence”. Maybe you’re right and you can run circles around me in the brains department but I’d wonder about that if for no other reason than that I don’t make simplistic cursory assumptions with regards to other people’s behaviors particularly when it’s a known fact that the smarter a person is, the more they need to move around!
This is incredible:
Try and get them interested in your presentation by talking about them and how they’ll use this product or service to become famous, rich or retired.
Your assumption is of course, that your target is stupid and superficial. Maybe we just need you to solve a problem for us. We don’t need the big-whiz bang that you think you represent. Actually, with this kind of attitude maybe your person was trying to get you to leave. Call me stupid (in fact you have), but my day to day business concerns do not center on my becoming rich, famous or retired. Some people have a value system that transcends these superficial concerns.
And I just can’t believe you wrote this:
Go to their competitor and make ‘em sorry they wouldn’t listen to you.
Trust me, I won’t feel sorry if you go to my competitor. With the attitudes you’ve shown here, you’d be doing me a favor -assuming I wanted to give my competitor a bad day.
This post sounds defensive; like you’re grinding an axe. I don’t think its a good example of your best work. You do a great disservice to sales people with this post, affirming people’s opinions that sales people are arrogant, shallow, stupid, superficial and self absorbed.
2 years ago I snagged an appt. with an “ants in his pants” potential buyer for security software. He’s the type who always let’s U know how much smarter he is than you while moving continuously around the conference room. Knowing this in advance I brought in a custom made (by a pal’o'mine) radio controlled mini-tank with sound. The minute he started roaming and extolling his virtues, I took the toy out of my presentation case and set it on the ground and sent it towards him. The little speaker kept saying “Surrender now, Resistance is Futile”.
He cracked up and whilst I pointed my fingers at him like a gun he sat down and listened for 15 minutes. LSS= He bought the software right then and there and ordered 5 mini-tanks for his buddies.
True story, as I am an “Extreme Salesman/Marketeer”! I spell marketer like marketeer. I guess I always wanted to be a buccaneer.
Moral: When you want a potential client to sit and down and listen use an outrageously humourous tactic. Works for me.
Cordially Yours,
Mitchell A. Dominguez
“Resistance is Futile”
Hi Kathleen -
To put this as I would if you were a potential client …
Goodbye Kathleeen.
Glad you enjoyed yourself.
You are EXACTLY the customer I was talking about, so it was great for you to come by and prove my points.
Note to sales people: If you meet one like this, RUN, don’t walk, RUN as fast as you can.
Hi Mitch -
Glad you stopped by.
That’s exactly what I hoped people would do … share their own experiences.
You set the bar high, my friend, now let’s see if anybody can touch that.