The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

There’s a hotel that I return to every time I visit Portland, Oregon because each time I go, I’m delighted.

One of the most difficult aspects of selling is getting the first appointment with a new prospect. That is a fact, but it shouldn’t be the only focus. Simply getting the appointment is not the goal; the goal is to get a good appointment.

What if every time your prospect or customer felt like you were pushing your products, rather than focusing on his business, he transformed into a Hollywood Director and screamed, “Cut. Boring! Let’s talk about MY business!” Assessing your approach to sales, how many times do you think you’d hear that? 

An article called “Tasting Menus” in the New York Times caught my attention last week. It was about a new concept sweeping fine dining restaurants in America—lengthy meals with many delightful menu choices. What intrigued me was not the description of the food or the menu—it was the care the restaurant staff took to make the diners feel like partners in an experience. 

Showrooming. Most of us have done it—walked into a store, found an interesting product… then pulled out the smartphone to see if we can find the product cheaper online and make a purchase there instead of in the store. This trend is becoming more popular, and it is forcing retailers to boost their existing mobile presence and experience or be left behind.

It started innocently enough. You had a planning meeting with the client that you knew would take a better part of the morning, so you stopped at the donut shop on the way to the appointment. A couple of weeks later, you wanted to make-up for failing to return a phone call, so you grabbed a bag of bagels. And before you knew it, you were hooked on the stuff.

Crickets. That’s what I heard when I direct dialed a bunch of sales reps to inquire about pricing, timing, delivery and credit. Here I was, flush with cash (to pay in advance of services, as the new corporation had no credit), and a very large percentage of sales reps from all industries were lax or never even bothered to call back. They literally left cash on the ground. I couldn’t believe it. I was a "call-in" with ready money.

One of the industry newsletters I subscribe to comes from FICO (Fair Isaac Corporation), whose work is centered on lending and banking analytics. A recent issue warned against operational negation. That is, behavioral contradictions which can send the customer conflicting signals.

The belly flop… a dive with great potential that… well… flops. It’s the perfect metaphor for all the things that can go wrong after the sale. Over the last few months, I’ve watched too many big ideas fail—and not because the ideas were weak. These projects were brilliant, and they could have produced a nice profit. As a consumer, number one fan, and a marketer, I’m frustrated that these ideas fell flat before they ever had a chance to take off. I’m sure you’re wondering… if the concepts were so stellar, what went wrong? Two words: poor planning.

It is a safe and generally smart practice for a salesperson to under-promise and shoot to over-deliver. So why would you ever want to vary from this “under-promise” strategy? If you want to keep growing personally and discover new ways to help clients, once in a while you need to stretch a little and promise something you don’t normally deliver, but feel quite confident you can get done. There is risk involved in this, but if you get it right, you’ll delight the client and add a new capability to your tool kit.