You can learn important business lessons from just about any source, including a squeegee kid with a surprisingly nuanced sales approach.
Why is that important for business?
The biggest challenges you will encounter when doing sales – and if you are in business, make no mistake: you are doing sales – are the silent objections of your potential clients. Often, while being sold to, we are busy stacking up a list of reasons to say no. Good sales is about making it easy to say yes.
What, by trying harder, makes sales barriers go up; and what, by trying harder, makes sales barriers go down?
First, the young business ingenue made you root for him, but he also made it feel like he was rooting for his potential customer. He looked at the world through his customer’s eyes and figured out what mattered to that person. He essentially asked, “if I can give you more of what you want, is it worth it to you?” His approach wasn’t adversarial at all – it was customer-focused.
And even though this particular instance was not one in which “I’ll think about it” was an option, there was enough pressure to make the “yes” simple. Although pressure can definitely cause your barriers to come up, there is a service to the kind of pressure that makes something a definitive choice. “I’ll think about it” is a burden for busy people. Helping people to make a decision simple is a gift.
Authenticity is also critical to a positive sales experience. Sales is often a long-term commitment – people who don’t buy from you can help you understand what approach would work in the future, as long as the request is made in a genuine, un-pushy way. You can’t lie your way into truly good selling. And the work, like this squeegee kid’s, should live up to the promise.
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