The Worst Sales Experience That I Have Ever Had

Back in late 2014 I sent an online request to a company for information on a service that I was interested in purchasing.  Little did I know that my request would lead to the worst sales experience that I have ever had.  I have been involved with sales and marketing for more than two decades and during that time I have never seen a sale go as badly as this one did.

My first phone call with their company salesperson, let’s call her “Regina”, went fairly well.  Regina did a great job of telling me about the company and explaining the benefits of using their services.  The phone call ended with me asking her to follow-up with me in a week to further discuss purchasing their service.  It was all downhill from there…

Unfortunately, I was unavailable to talk with Regina the day she called.  As I am so often, I was either on the phone with customers or potential customers most of the day.  As I would have expected, Regina left a voicemail but then she decided to call back 14 more times that day.  The next few weeks were pretty much the same thing, numerous calls back to back on both my office phone and cell phone.  I can now say that there is nothing more annoying than being on the phone with a customer and having a salesperson call you…REPEATEDLY.

Lesson #1

Remember that prospective customers have dozens of  tasks that they need to accomplish daily.  So if they don’t get back to you immediately, leave a message and call back in a week.  Now that you’ve connected with them, your job is to occasionally remind them who you are until they are ready to talk or buy.

When we eventually reconnected, Regina was completely unprepared for our call.  The call started off with her explaining to me how our competitors were using their services.  That would have been a great way to explain the value of their service, but the companies that she named were not our competitors.  Not only did these companies not provide security guard management software, they weren’t even in the security industry.

Lesson #2

Research your buyer’s industry and competitors.  Understanding both will give you insight into what challenges the buyer may be facing. 

After I told her that she hadn’t actually named any of our competitors, she said that in her database it looked like those companies were our competition.  I asked her had she had a chance to look over our website to see what we did and she said that she hadn’t.

Lesson #3

Research your buyers to understand what that they do.  With the availability of company websites and social media you can develop a great picture of who your buyer is and what their needs might be.

Further along in the conversation she asked me was the price of the service the reason that I was not ready to buy.  I told her that price was not the issue and also explained that the issue was that the service did not align with my current priorities.  Rather than ask what those priorities were, she explained how they could spread the payments out over several months.

Lesson #4

If your prospect mentions goals, objectives, or priorities take the opportunity to investigate what they are.  Having conversations about how your offerings help the buyer accomplish their goals will always be more fruitful than talking about discounts, features, and/or capabilities.

After I failed to commit to buying the service based on the offer to extend payments, Regina rudely asked “If you didn’t want to buy our service why did you even say that you wanted to be contacted?”

Lesson #5

No matter how bad a meeting or phone call goes, NEVER lose your composure.

Once Regina posed that question I knew that it was time to get off the phone.  I politely ended the conversation and let her know that when I was interested I would give her a call.

Sales is a full contact sport that requires effort, preparation, and commitment.  When you lose a sale, as Regina did, it is easy to blame the buyer, which she probably did.  But if you are honest with yourself, you can identify the mistakes that you made and can use them to learn from and better develop your sales skills.  Hopefully Regina learned something from our interaction.

What is the worst sales experience that you’ve ever had?  What did the salesperson do wrong?  What could the salesperson have done to close the sale?  I would love to hear from you so please leave your comments below.

 

 

By Courtney Sparkman

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