Would you like to receive a distasteful salesman?

In fact, who wouldn’t like it?

One of those boring, really dull, pushing, and annoying.

The kind who don’t prepare for the meetings. Who don’t even bother to visit the company’s website?

Or who parachute into meetings with customers and ask:

“By the way, what does Your company do?”.

It makes you want to answer:

“It doesn’t do anything. We buy everything already done!”.

Those who luckily got a meeting with a very important client (you were probably distracted) and threw it all away by thinking:

“Well, let’s go there with our chests open, and we’ll see what to do!”.

Funny how this attitude still exists in sales today.

You would think that with so much access to the meeting, they would take the trouble to prepare minimally for the long-awaited event.

Not that we have ever caught a salesman like this…

Neither the reader nor I have probably been lucky enough to have someone sell us in this way.

Another characteristic of this type of salesman that I particularly appreciate is the catalog method of selling.

Don’t you know it?

Hmmm…, see if you recognize it.

They arrive, talk about Football (to avoid being booed), make two or three compliments to the company, etc., and go straight to the point with a mechanical speech, previously rehearsed to exhaustion and somewhat worn out after being used many times.

Does it remind you of anything?

Yes, of course, it may!

The problem is not the speech.

The problem is that the speech does not fit our reality.

As he advances with the famous catalog of solutions or products without knowing what we need often makes us like this kind of salesperson even more.

As a friend of mine says, they are sweethearts.

They show us so many nice things that we don’t even need.

The problem with the famous catalog, which unbelievably is still used a lot, is that they don’t involve the potential customer in something that solves their problem or need.

In other words, they shoot without knowing which way the target is.

And between the dead and the wounded, someone will survive.

Finally, another characteristic of offensive salespeople is that after we’re done with them, or sorry, after we finish the meeting, we greatly desire to keep talking to them.

And don’t they know it?

They call us all the time, every week, with silly questions, with new products, with anything they have at hand to communicate with us.

And because we love them so much, of course, we won’t do business with them.

Probably never in our lives.

Or if you believe in reincarnation, never in many lifetimes.

Now leaving the joking tone, these are three mistakes that make Salesmen today still unpalatable.

A good salesperson doesn’t always have to sell.

But when leaving the meeting with the customer, we feel that there was professionalism, and we often go in the customer’s mind a good image and the following idea:

“We didn’t buy, but look, I even got some ideas from the conversation with this Salesman.”

If we can achieve at least this, it’s halfway there for the customer to contact us when he needs us.

This week take a moment to think and see if you are not being a little unpalatable when selling.

So that it doesn’t happen:

Prepare for meetings with your customers.
Instead of bringing a catalog or presentation and starting presenting immediately, try to engage the customer with questions that uncover their needs.
At the end of the meeting, establish a commitment from the customer on how the business process should proceed.
If you comply with these three suggestions, you will significantly improve the image clients have of you.

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Also published on Medium.