I have been enrolling children in registered education savings plans for more than 16 years. Early in my career, I was making a sales presentation to a couple living in a very nice condominium in Toronto. Of course, the focal point of my presentation was the importance of their daughters' education.
As always, I was smooth.
I had a frequently used phrase that would get any good parent thinking about putting their money away for their children's education: "You don't want your girls to grow up to be waitresses, do you?"
Mom and Dad shot concerned looks at each other. A-ha! I'd struck a chord with the purse-string pullers. This tactic often drove my prospects right to the close.
And my potent strategy worked again.
Upon completing the sale, I began filling out the application and arrived at the line that requests their employment status. I asked the father what he did for a living. He replied, "Waiter." I then asked the wife for her occupation: "Waitress." I must have turned 88 shades of red, but I didn't say anything to acknowledge my faux pas. To this day, I am still astonished that they enrolled their children despite my ill-advised comment. I guess you can say that I was successful despite myself!
The Moral: Gordon was lucky, and sometimes selling is about luck. You've likely encountered people who buy because they've already decided to buy before you even arrived. We've all had sales calls where we could have been dressed in fig leaves and still walked away as winners. Sometimes, we get the gift of a new client with minimal use of the skills we've honed for years. However, you and I both know that Gordon would have been smart (and humble) to apologize for his verbal blunder. Apologizing makes us human and approachable and can give us a plethora of referrals.
Sales from the Dark Side is compiled by speaker and trainer Dan Seidman. For more tales, visit www.salesautopsy.com.
