Buzz and Pester

I live in the woods, and every summer I endure a number of mosquitoes. This summer, however, the mosquitoes have been the worst I have ever known. Every time that I walk my dogs, I encounter hundreds of them. They are so prevalent that I have cut back on my summer gardening. Frustratingly, they have been around since early April, and, until the frost, they will continue to multiply.

As I was contemplating my Insight for this week, these mosquitoes came to mind. I thought about how similar mosquitoes are to the sales efforts of some companies. They mercilessly pester, irritatingly buzz, and offer nothing that’s in it for me. While I greatly admire persistence, this meaningless, not-in-it-for-me persistence is purely annoying.

Does that remind you of some sales people?

Have you had sales people contact you who had no knowledge of your company? Have they “pitched” you a special, a package, or an idea without knowing how it would fit into your company’s objectives? Have they come back or called over and over and over again to get you to buy?

If so, you have encountered a mosquito-type sales person, one that pesters, buzzes, and offers nothing that’s in it for you. This person’s only focus is what’s in it for him. He wants to sell you something. So what if you get something out of it? His goal is his own pocketbook.

He could make three changes and lose his mosquito-like properties. First, he could prepare before contacting you by getting to know your company and discovering how his product or service could help you solve a problem. With this information, he would be able to show what’s in it for you during his presentation. Finally, after making a presentation which demonstrates that he did his homework, he could set his next contact with you. Doing so would be courteous and put you, the buyer, in control. Buyers love to be in control, and that makes this gesture very well received.

Taking the time to understand a customer increases the likelihood of a sale. Rather than buzzing around customers who may not buy, the salesperson applies his time toward those who would benefit by the purchase. Instead of pestering a customer to buy, the salesperson shows the customer how the product or service solves the customer’s problem. In an effort to close the sale, the salesperson explains what’s in it for the customer to make the purchase. He focuses on the correct “me,” the customer, rather than the wrong “me,” himself.

Both the customer’s time and the salesperson’s time are used productively. Both win.

Best of all, buzz and pester selling end.