To be a successful salesperson, one must listen to the wants and needs of the prospect so they can properly craft a pitch, many experts declare.
A recent encounter I had with a telephone sales rep drove home this point. The person was trying to sell me on switching my current cable television and Internet service to his company's, that line's current telephone service provider. He started well by saying he would like to give me a quote to switch service.
The call went downhill from there. The next words out of his mouth disparaged my current provider, not once but twice. The problem with that is, I had not said anything bad about his competitor's service to him. In fact, I like my current provider; my prior experience with his company's customer service has all been negative (which was a major factor in switching another line's phone service to a different provider).
He finally got around to asking me what premium channels I have, before mentioning his company's package, which does not include those. He then went to speak to a supervisor (I could here this in the background) and as that conversation began to drag, I hung up.
A few minutes later, he called again, apologizing for getting disconnected and then came in with a new part of the offer.
We moved to the Internet, and he kept harping on the speed his service provides and that they provided a free wireless router. That's great except for one thing—I have a router which is less than one year old and don't need another one. I told him that and got back a very flip comment.
Finally after about 20 minutes total of him preaching to me and not asking me what it would take for me to get me to switch, he finally came up with the price. Relayed that to my wife, who said she was not interested. At that point, I terminated the conversation with the sales rep, who apparently called back one minute later (I say apparently because he didn't leave a message when I let the phone ring through to the answering machine).
I also told my wife that she could have saved me from 20 minutes worth of being talked at by someone who thought they knew our telecommunications' needs.
The lesson: Before you begin your spiel, make sure you know what your client's mortgage needs are; they could be totally different from your assumptions.
