THE SALES DATE

Dear  Friends,

Heartfelt welcome to all my readers and welcome back to my digital space aka blog.

Today, I will try to draw an analogy between A Sales visit at customer place to a date with a prospective girl friend.

Sounds ominous as both are a part of a man’s world at different ages therefore going ahead with this, I am sure I’ll strike nostalgia among our readers who have experienced both, for others the fragrance of first date will be attempted for a flash back.

We will try to picture the whole sales process with the dating sequences.

One fine day during your primary, secondary search you find a big potential customer that hasn’t still been tapped. You make your homework, search contacts and contact the customer for an appointment. The customer more often than not will cite business and you will negotiate for a convenient (customer’s convenience mind you) appointment.

Now , on the D day, you will wear your best shirt, prepared with a lot of groundwork about customer’s business, your business opportunities, competitor situation before the visit. On meeting, your sole objective will be to charm, to charm the customer to levels that he believes he is making a mistake not doing business with you.

SALES, my friends is about style and attitude.  All your products, prices, references, cost saving ppts,   knowledge about customer’s business goes garbage once the style and business attitude factor is not communicated.

Now when we compare that to a date with a girl friend prospect:

One fine day during a party, birthday, marriage, FBing you stumble upon a gorgeous intelligent girl that you believe should be with you.

You do your homework; find here likes, dislikes, places she goes, before you get introduced or speak over phone.

She would cite business or even bluntly say NO to meeting you, but you will negotiate convenience (customer’s convenience, yet again) for a date.

You will wear your best attire, be prepared on choosing topics with common grounds before going on topics with personal opinions. Competitor situation and his weakness, if any would be clear to you before the date. You will know who she is dating and what may stop that to happen in future.

And the objective is to charm, here again to the extent that she should feel as to why you didn’t meet her before.

In customer sales your objective is to take the order, in a dating situation, it would be getting commitment from her side.

Just like in customer sales, you want to be the sole supplier, but rarely would the customer rely only on you.

The girl in a dating situation will rarely have only you in her life.(If she does , you should be truly grateful)

The more we believe sales to be a date, the more we will love its process and we’ll remember, as we have to keep trying for love again n again, a customer’s NO is a way of saying a delayed YES.