THREE RING DISASTER Scott is the ringmaster of this disaster:
My associate and I are about to do a sales presentation to a corporate client in August.
It's hot, and we're about 45 minutes early to their building, so we decide to get something to drink at the closest convenience store.
We run into a store and I buy a super large cherry frozen drink thing and my partner picks up a lime flavored one.
We drive back to the prospect's building and sit in the visitor's spot, mentally preparing and drinking frozen pop.
I glance over at my partner and his mouth, lips and tongue are bright green!
I flip down the rear-view mirror and mine, of course, are glowing red.
And it’s time for our sales call.
We grab napkins, rags, paper and frantically start wiping. Nothing could get this off our mouths. You know how this coloring doesn’t disappear for an hour or more from kids’ faces.
So we walk into the lobby of this building where people actually burst out laughing – seeing two guys looking like circus clowns.
Into the President’s office we’re led, where I give the most uninspired presentation of my business career.
He couldn’t look at us and take us seriously. We were never asked back.
POSTMORTEM: Scott told me his lesson was “don’t do something dumb before a call.” There’s a better learning experience here. It’s about rapport. The psychological reason a call like this fails is that you cannot gain rapport with a prospect if he or she cannot 'relate' to you as a circus creature. So unless you’re calling on a circus clown, a ringmaster, or, at the least, that guy who follows the elephants with a shovel, you can’t be in rapport looking like a circus clown. Get in rapport and you’ll sell much more.
To learn more about this author, visit Dan Seidman's Website.
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Dan Seidman
(Visit Dan's Website)
Dan Seidman collects sales horror stories
for a living. He's been designated "One
of the Top 12 Sales Coaches in America."
Dan's hilarious columns are read by over
one million readers each month.
Dan has produced The Sales Comic Book:
there is nothing like it on this planet,
possibly any planet. He has also created a
wild, new video game Revenge of the Reps –
when you’ve just had enough of pathetic
prospects and beastly buyers.
Dan speaks at national sales conferences.
His mission is to help sales professionals
and entrepreneurs to have fun and make
more money to take home to their families.
Share your most embarrassing selling
moment with Dan and you could win a prize
when it’s published: dan@sal
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