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Just got off a phone call with a guy wanting to sell me some services. I thought I would do his colleague the favour of letting them know where they went wrong. Of course, in doing so I reminded myself of some things I could be doing better too. Funny how it works like that. You make an effort to teach someone something and you learn from it yourself.
G'day Russell,
You will undoubtedly hear that things did not go as you would have desired on the phone call.You might easily dismiss it as some old curmudgeon taking offense at the slightest thing.Which I am perfectly willing for you to do and you might be right.:-)
But I have been in sales for over 30 years so there might be something here worth reading.
I recall over 30 years ago reading how a top executive, (I think it was Reg Ansett, a guy who ran an airline here is Australia) said he could newly meet someone and sum them up in 30 seconds of conversation.
In my youthful ignorance at the time it was completely outside my reality. Talking to many thousands of people since and having done some very interesting courses that taught me a lot about people, I find myself a lot closer to being able to do that than I was 40 years ago. Let me share with you the indicators from the conversation I had with your colleague.
There's an old line, "Most people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."
If you are in the top 1% of people who like to learn from their mistakes, allow me to offer some free coaching.Call it a "mystery shopper" feedback.
1. You said you would talk to me but then you got someone else to talk to me. First broken agreement. Acts as an invalidation - "I'm not important enough for him to talk to." Which may be a good call on your part. :-) WHENEVER you hand over a person to another team member it should always be done with a good explanation and plenty of notice. NEVER no notice and no explanation.
2. The person who spoke with me had done insufficient homework to satisfy me he was interested enough in me and my business to understand my assets with which he would be working. This demonstrated to me a lack of interest and lack of genuine desire to truly understand me and my business and to be of service. The more homework you do on a person and their business, the more chance of success you have.
3. When he could not bring up my Facebook Healthelicious site I asked him to spell what he had entered. It took two repeats of my question and me actually having to physically check for myself that what I was asking him to do would work before he told me the incorrect spelling he was using. This demonstrated a lack of interest and courtesy in getting right the name of the prospect's firm and, what's even worse, an inability to follow instructions or duplicate commands. Bad enough having to deal with those inabilities face-to-face but the last thing you want to have when working remotely with someone.
And this is a sales guy! Where you want to be creating the best impression to win the business!
As a result of the above feedback I hope you review and refine your processes and coach your colleague. I know as a business owner that this sort of feedback is worth gold. But only if you use it!
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