WEEK 29

FIND A BETTER PLACE TO MEET YOUR CLIENTS

For many salespeople, the question of where a sales call takes place is a given. You sell clothing in a mall boutique and that’s where you meet your customers. Or you sell boats at a marina and you meet buyers in the showroom or on the lot. Or you sell mortgages in a loan office and you talk to customers at your desk.

This is all well and good. But if, like me, you have some choice of where you meet customers, you ought to give some serious thought to getting this right. This seemingly innocent choice actually could make or break the success of your sales call.

CHOOSE A PLACE WITH THE RIGHT AMBIENCE

Let’s start with a given. You always want to discover how your customer feels about a transaction, not what he or she thinks about it. Buying decisions are primarily emotional, gut reactions, and you want to learn what hopes, fears, expectations, and desires your customer harbors for whatever you’re selling.

After many years of close observation, I firmly believe that some places are more conducive than others to bringing out a customer’s true feelings. For example, when I’m meeting clients in their home, I always try to get them to the kitchen table as quickly as possible. People invite acquaintances or businesspeople to the living room or den, but they invite friends to the kitchen. That’s where they’re most likely to unwind. That’s where they’ll reveal their true feelings to me.

Sometimes I have to use a little fancy footwork to get to the kitchen. If I’m trying to get the listing to sell this home, and the customer invites me to sit in the living room, I may ask for a glass of water or simply say I want to see their kitchen. I use my gut instincts with each client to judge how easily and how quickly I can accomplish this initial aim of getting to the kitchen table. It doesn’t always succeed, but it always makes my work easier when that’s where we have our conversation.

SET THE STAGE

I think a lot about how to set the stage for my sales call, too. If I’m calling a husband and wife at their home, which I often do, I like to place my customers at the corner of the kitchen table, close together, with me at the opposite corner. This way I can see both of them at the same time. I can judge from their eyes and their body language how I’m doing.

You can adapt this principle to almost any setting. If you’re meeting customers in a restaurant, try to get them to sit facing you, not facing the rest of the room. A busy restaurant offers so many distractions that your customers’ attention may wander. You want them focused on you alone so you can draw them out about the transaction.

Even if you sell clothes in a mall, you can exercise some choice of setting. You could, for example, approach customers while they’re at the clothes rack or stand back in a more reserved posture at the counter. To me, it seems clear that more sales are made at the rack than at the counter because at the rack you can get truer reactions, as well as demonstrate your expertise about the various lines of clothing. A sales representative who waits at the counter for customers to bring their selections is really just an order taker, not a salesperson in the true sense of the word.

NAVIGATE AN OFFICE MEETING

Suppose you make sales calls on companies. Maybe you’ll be directed to the purchasing manager’s office, or even to the desk of a subordinate. When possible, suggest that the meeting be held in the executive’s private office. Maybe that’s obvious, but let’s examine why. Even a corporate conference room is not as good as a private office. Conference rooms are remote from the place where the purchasing executive feels comfortable. It’s where group decisions are made, often in the negative because most committee decisions are negative.

Instead, you want to get inside that comfort zone, not in a threatening way, but just so the buyer will let his or her hair down a little and share with you some genuine reactions. At the very least, you may learn why you’re not getting the deal at this time. Outside the comfort zone, your customer may have told you that the company just doesn’t need your product right now, but in his office he may let you know he was disappointed with the service last time around. Such honest reactions are crucial to successful selling in the future.

By the way, when you call on a company, try to find out as much as you can about it and its structure. Get the names not only of the purchasing agent and the agent’s boss, but also the names of the secretaries and the receptionist. Take my office, for example. Often another salesperson who’s trying to sell me something will call and ask for Ralph, as though he knows me. My receptionist will say I’m not in the office, so the caller will ask, “Is Lois there?” referring to my second in command. Since the caller knows Lois’s name, our receptionist will put the call through to her. Maybe we won’t want to buy anything that day, but at least the caller knew enough to get a step closer to the decision maker in the office.

In the same way, the more you know about how a company works, the better the odds you’ll be able to complete your sales call successfully.

 

Ralph’s Rule: Sales success is a matter of details. I can think of no situation where you couldn’t improve the odds in your favor by a little artful stage setting. Give the setting some thought, and I bet you will see results.