I am a former advertising sales manager and vp/sr consultant for a media sales and management consulting firm. A few months ago I left corporate America to form a small business with my family.
I have created this blog to share my perspective from the other side of the desk which is now the client side.
My first post is courtesy of a local real estate agent.
We recently took our home off the market and asked our daughter (who is also our agent) to pull the listing from MLS. I'm assuming, as a result we rec'd this postcard in the mail today.
Headline: Don't Make the Same Mistake Again!
Referring to our bad judgement in selecting our Agent. The general message suggested if we smarten up and list with Remax everything will be wonderful. She obviously doesn't know our real estate agent is also our daughter and she has no idea that our listing is NOT expired - we have taken it off the market deliberately. She has made a very poor first impression for herself and on behalf of Remax.
As an outside sales person have you made this same mistake? The mistake of not researching your prospect before making contact? The mistake of not having a good business reason for reaching out to your prospect? The mistake of not taking the time/initiative to learn more of what your client is trying to accomplish because you're too busy trying to sell something?
As a new small business owner I can say with confidence that 99% of all sales people who have called on me have had the exact same business reason for doing so. They all want to sell me on their product or service and they all use the exact same reasons we should buy from them:
- merchant services/ credit card processing - lower fees
- business banking - free checking
- advertising - best circulation, highest readership, best demographic profile
- high speed internet - lowest rates, best bundle
- power provider - rates
- telephone/long distance -rates
- SEM - first page search results
- upholstery services -best prices, highest quality work
- furniture repair - fix anything
These reasons are not compelling. They are not meaningful to me. In my opinion, these sellers keep making the same mistake over and over. They continue to try and sell me rather than helping me understand why I should buy.
