By Alex Horvath
By the time the salesperson was finished, I just wanted to shout with glee; "You've closed us! We're closed! Now bring on the contract and let us go home!"
As the result of attending a recent Bridal Showcase, my fiancée had received a phone call which informed her that she had been selected to receive a free trip to Mexico or the Bahamas. Note: The call did not say she had won the trip; she had merely been selected to receive it. We simply needed to sit through an hour-long presentation from a cookware company. There was no obligation to buy anything. It wasn't a time-share, and no matter what, we would leave with a trip and an assortment of other prizes, just for attending.
I'll cut to the chase for a moment and admit being skeptical. I remember telling my fiancée emphatically how this sounded like a something-for-nothing scheme. And that our house was most likely going to be robbed while we were at the meeting. She agreed that at first glance, it sounded too good to be true. But she said that I should try and be more open-minded. In the interest of domestic harmony, I agreed to attendñbut not to buy anything. Nothing. No way, no how. And that's how on a rainy Tuesday night, I found myself puttering up the freeway after work toward the hotel where the meeting was being held. And a little more than an hour later, I was thanking the salesperson, while signing for $1200 worth of pots and pans, which should be arriving sometime this week.
What had happened? As my fiancée and I agreed, we had encountered a good salesperson. No, I later insisted, he was a Sales Professional.
What was the difference? Almost anybody can be a sales person. If you have a desire to shake hands, talk, earn money without working too hard, have your personal hygiene under control, and can handle rejection, then a career in sales might be right for you. There are thousands of people who enter the sales force every day. Some are around for a long time, some are one or two-hit wonders. Others quit the first day, wondering how anybody could ever do this kind of work. It's the people who set goals and sell with a plan that make the big sales, make winning-careers of it.
Like this guy. He had it all planned out before we even walked through the door.
First, there was his personal appearance. This was a travelling salesperson, who, as he told us, lived out of hotel room 40 weeks a year. But he looked clean and rested, and his suit was immaculately pressed, better than my own neighborhood dry cleaner has ever done for me. He had been with the company for seven years, he said, and genuinely seemed like he enjoyed what he did.
Second, and maybe most important, by anticipating potential skeptics, he overcame my initial objections the very first thing, before I even mentioned them. "None of you have to buy anything. You will still leave with a trip," he said. He proceeded to tell us brief stories about himself, meeting his wife in college and their two, wonderful children.
The salesman then went through the rest of his presentation, but not before spending a good fifteen minutes telling us about the company's 32 year reputation, their standing with the Better Business Bureau, places where they advertise, TV shows where their product has been featured, and again, reiterating that no one in the room would have to make a purchase. But, he said, he hoped we would (this was trial close # 1). Credibility had been built.
His talk was excellent, and by the end of it, I was convinced that I had been feeding our family metal scrapings from the bottoms of our current cookware. That couldn't be very good. But new product or not, it was the enthusiasm and disarming wit of this great sales professional that had really sold us. We had bought him before we bought the product.
Some tips for Sales Professionals to remember on selling with a plan.
