101 Best sales and Marketing Ideas
IDEA 99:
NEVER TELL OBVIOUS LIES
It may be that selling involves some exaggeration, and occasionally a little white lie, but more than that runs risks. Tell someone that the battery life of some gizmo is twice what it actually is, and this description may help clinch the sale, but it may also mean the customer is back promptly to return the goods, and resolves never to buy from you again.
Yet despite the logic of this, some sales people not only tell lies, they compound the damage by telling obvious lies, in some cases making statement that are both cliché and spotted as doubtful at ten paces. My least favourite, and a common one, is the sales person seeking an appointment who says something like, “What about Tuesday morning at 10 am? I will be in your area then”. Now, not only do I not believe this for a single second (the person will be in my area only if I agree to a meeting), strangely I do not see helping the person to reduce their travel time as a priority at this early stage in our relationship. Certainly it is not a reason to see them. Such a line simply fails to reflect the realities of the relationship.
Idea
For all sales people overrating their own convenience…
Do not say this, or indeed any other permutation of it. Not ever. Certainly do not offer it baldly as a reason that someone should see you. If a prospect agrees to a meeting, if you have persuaded them to take an initial interest, then by all means try to make meeting them productive. If you want to offer a time that is easy for you (rather than asking them what suits them best), at least be honest about it, and position it as helping you. They may well be helpful: having agreed to see you, they may well not want to appear awkward. But express the thought too early and in the wrong way, and you create the reverse of the impression you want.
In practice
- Nothing creates negatives feelings in a customer about a sales person faster than this sort of thing.
- Avoid it.