I sell for a living. My mom too. Dad did. My sister, not so much; she works as an audio engineer for Apple in LA, and everyday I’m awed by her abilities. Sister-aside, you could say sales runs in my family and because they are my family the trust was there, and I learned a lot.
For starters, I learned a good salesperson doesn’t really sell anything. You want the stupid pen or you don’t. There are mind games one can play but they’ll quickly consume you, and trust me, it ain’t a great ending point. So, now, you know you can’t make them want the car, the HR software solution or the blue tipped pen for $939, handcrafted. So what can you do? I listened. Mostly because if I didn’t listen, Dad, he’d notice immediately and chastise me. So I did, and what I noticed was Dad would really talk about the product too much.
‘Did you know this TV is made with LG proprietary hardware but is better because it employs Sony made algorithms to create that impressionable colour scheme that makes you feel like you’re actually there in the jungle with the dinosaur? And yes, there is a difference between OLED and LED – rather than use lights in traditional LEDs thousands of these tiny lights – it just simply mixes naturally the colours required in the TV. Notice how black the night looks in this scene? That’s because the black spots are actually the night – there’s no light. In LED, there’d always be just a little bit of light emanating, and your mind would see it and know it’s fake. Not so here on Sony.’
I would watch this scene, after school most days only about twelve or thirteen years old, and I’d notice for example, the wife juggling a young son on her shoulder only half listening, her right foot tapping nervously. I could tell she wanted to get this over with. She’d mentioned from the start she just needed a decent sized TV as a surprise for her husband’s birthday. It seemed self-evident to me Dad could’ve just plopped the closest TV to him in her shopping cart and she’d happily accept. But my dad usually didn’t notice these small gestures, instead, he’d now busily be reciting the material components of the monitor and why it meant it lasted for at least a decade. You see, this scene would play out all the time, and I was always dumbfounded because despite my dad blabbering on about the who cares features, the customer clearly not all that interested, and myself almost shamefully waiting for the inevitable moment where the customer would smile or nod, politely excuse themselves, and run away–I was almost always, wrong.
They almost always bought it, and usually, more. At which point I always asked, ‘Huh?’
What would happen is after my Dad insisted on establishing the trustworthiness of the product in question, the customer would inevitably agree, ‘It’s a great TV.’ My dad would nod and smile. Then usually that busy mom would say ‘but it’s really out of my price range.’ At which point, my Dad would now focus and notice that impatient foot and the toddler resting on her neck. He’d say, ‘of course, things costs too much these days.’ And he’d spend just as much time if not more asking about her kids, the drive to the store, if she was looking for anything else, if she needed help loading the car. Usually, he’d get into a real conversation and sometimes I’d see mom put her kid in her lap, lean against something and just talk to my Dad. My dad loved to listen. At some point, she might get tired again, he’d notice, and say something like, ‘Hey I understand you’re on a budget so what do you think your husband cares less about for a TV?’ Surprisingly, a customer usually remembered one or two things from my dad’s product rant and that was the way they found a compromise. ‘He loves his dark horror movies. Is there anything cheaper in the OLED line?’ And that was it – that was the close. No need for a hard sell. It happened because my dad had established trust rather forcibly in the beginning. Then he did the nice thing of caring about the human in front of him and the bond established they just worked together to figure the best thing they could get.
It’s all about trust
Yes, sometimes hard sales are necessary. I’ve heard my mom tell a guy that if he thought any longer the end of the earth would arrive, the store collapsing into it and his ashes could let the wind blow them on the ultimate tile choice he desired. He made a decision. But they’d been together for three hours already and after numerous visits to the store. Myself, I’ve been known to create 3 card slidedecks, each slide simply listing a single reason with an estimated monetary ROI below for a decision they’ve been bulking on. But those are last resorts. I know the customer well. Marianne will most likely smirk at each listing.
What I’m getting at is doing the right thing and finding a way to naturally show you know what you’re doing and care is actually your job. Your customer will naturally care too. They’ll tell you their roadblocks, the office politics blocking a logical decision to move forward or might even just tell you about the bad Italian restaurant they ate at last weekend. Obviously, read your room. The stern CTO might not want your latest dad joke but the director of accounting who had non stop losses all quarter might. Learn their names and when you mess up, apologise. Find a way to help them, and they’ll help you too. Set boundaries but be reasonable. Just be human. Nobody likes a robot. Try not to make a transactional relationship even more so. Instead, find what you can relate with together. You might end up like me, loving the job despite the always incumbent bs 😉