I thought salespeople would want to sell 

I really thought that a sales person would want to sell and grab every opportunity that comes his or her way. After all it’s perceived as no easy job. 

I am certainly wrong in my thinking. Recent experiences have me convinced that salespeople want to do anything but sell. In fact I believe now that, no matter who you are reading this – your company or you individually have at least 100% of value left out in the market because you wont take it – Simply wouldn’t – it sounds absurd but its true.  I will share recent experiences that have convinced me of this conclusion. I have made the necessary adjustments in our company – I hope you will too. 

In December I came across these advertisements for studio apartments being launched in Bangalore. Looked interesting. I went to the project website, saw the layouts, plans, options and decided I should book one. It was very reasonably priced in a pre-launch offer. I filled the contact form online.  

Now, I thought someone with over a thousand apartments to sell would be a little eager.  I also thought people would like to capitalize on buyer’s moment of impulse. After all 84% (researched statistic) of all buying happens on impulse. I was wrong again – I received a call after three days! Nevertheless I still wanted to buy. But that’s just me, someone has to be willing to sell. 

A nice friendly girl was on the other side of the phone. She described the project wonderfully. I didn’t need to be sold but I liked her presentation on the phone. I informed her of my decision to buy. Told her about the apartment I was looking at. I knew the price. It was published on the site. For same strange reason the subject of discounts didn’t occur to me. She must have done a real good job in her five-minute description. I told her I would go ahead. I asked her for availability. She told me the floor, building number etc. I was fine with it. I said to her I’d like to go ahead (second time), how do we proceed?  - Now, she asks me to visit the site to have a look. I couldn’t understand what I’d look at in an empty piece of sprawling land. So I said I don’t want to do that, I am ready to buy, just let me know how to conclude the transaction. The reply again was to visit the site so she could she me around. 

I tried buying this apartment about five times in the conversation. She has probably never sold an apartment over a phone. That obviously meant that this will not be the first. Five times I was told to visit the site.  Not once, did she have the guts to say – Deal, I am sending the documents, please keep the cheque ready.  It’s been six months, no call again. The apartments are still being advertised so obviously haven’t been sold out. Not surprising, is it? 

Yesterday morning I was sitting with a friend.  He was sharing with me that he is looking to buy a new car. This guy is a car dealer himself. He is looking to buy another brand though. I told him that unless he visited the showroom, no one would give him the car, not even he himself would be able to buy from him. He didn’t believe me. He called the dealership in my presence, asked them to give him such and such car. He went a step further, he said that please send the car to his address and collect the cheque. “Sir, why don’t you visit the showroom and have a look at the colors?” was the reply. He was shocked but was absolutely convinced that his own set up was different. I called his showroom in front of him and failed yet again to make a purchase.  

Do yourself a favor – call your office right now. I guarantee you they will not make a sale over the phone. No Guts. Fill up the contact forms on your own website and assess the response time – are you losing the impulse of the buyer? I be you are! 

A couple of weeks back I was in Goa. We have a small little apartment there. I visited a furniture shop in Panjim. A large branded showroom. I liked this wonderful looking cane hanging chair. Now, this should be easy. All I have to is swipe the card and put it in my car and off I will be, right? I told the salesman, I’ll take it. He said they didn’t have stock and there’s none in sight. Fine, I said that I’ll take the one on display. It was a little dirty but I was fine with it. “We don’t sell the one on display,” was the reply.  What do you do with the one’s on display, throw it? Or keep it there forever.  Believe it or not, he would rather keep it on display and add to his inventory than sell it.  Unbelievable.  

The story goes further – I happen to be consulting with this particular brand. So I called them before writing this article just to check about this policy. Is it really a policy? My friend, the vice-president of sales admits hearing about it the first time from me.  He was himself in disbelief.  

Its common practice though – after all how can sales be so easy? 

It happens everywhere. I have been trying to test this out. I have been also trying to buy from my own clients. My very dear trusted and long standing relationships. Trust me, no one, not even people who know that you are absolutely serious about it, will sell you an easy sale. It truly is absurd.  

We were trying to book a conference hall for an upcoming conference we are hosting later this year for about a thousand people. Now given our kind of work, we are very familiar with the hotels and know exactly the place we want. We narrowed down to five options and would take whichever is available. We checked and found that all five are. So lets do it. These are all five star – known brands. Not one of them took the booking. They wanted us to visit the hotel, see the room (all of which we have done like a hundred times) and register our booking.  

Why would you want your buyer to do all the work? Are you lazy or what? Why wouldn’t you send someone to the office and collect your advances? Sounds simple and commonsense to me as am sure to you too. Who wants life to be simple though? What’s the fun in that? Lets complicate seems to be the mantra.  

We must be briefing our salespeople to not keep it simple and to make a buying experience a nightmarish one for the buyer. If you are not briefing yours that way, I would say you don’t need to. Its happening without the brief. 

A recent call was made by a client of mine to an office automation company. They needed a few products. They were setting up a large office in Delhi. It would be a substantive order. The reply from the company – please contact or local distributor. Why wouldn’t the company do the work themselves and have the distributor contact the client? We have to make it tough to buy, don’t we? Needless to say that they lost the order. Someone else with a little more manners took it. 

I landed in Chennai recently and incorrectly. I realized after landing I needed to actually be in Hyderabad. This was towards the evening and only one flight was available. No seats though. It was overbooked. I didn’t have an option but to take a chance. I asked the counter to issue me a ticket, a wait-listed one. Told him I’ll take the chance. He flatly refused to sell me the ticket. When I asked him why and after literally having to probe to find out, I discovered that he isn’t selling me one because he has concluded that I wouldn’t be able to board and so he’ll have to process the refund as well a little later. Ridiculous. I did get the ticket and I did board that flight as well. No refunds. Thus in hindsight it would have been a lost sale for them. But the sad part is that I did all the work – not the people who should and would make money out of it, running that business. Obviously their primary job is not to serve the customer. But, then whose is? 

Beware to not make the mistake of thinking that this isn’t your situation or doesn’t exist in your organizations. It does and in equal measure.  You might want to remain in denial and that is your right.   

In the modern day we have access to the best of knowledge and information on our fingertips, we have access to the best books on any subject and probably the best of training be provided by organizations we work for and yet in reality we come across as moronic people lacking basic common sense.   

From my experience of interactions with various sales groups over the years, I can safely estimate that there is at least a 100% lost business at the hands of each salesperson I have interacted with. Lost due to the reasons and stories mentioned above.  Lost because of a simple lack of focus and simplistic common sense. Its not the lack of selling skills that are losing them the sales. It is the ‘attitude and simple thinking’ that is.  

“Goals, efforts without a simple focus,” is like an automobile without gasoline. It looks really pretty but it can’t get you anywhere. Focus and simple common sense is the fuel that will take you from where you are to your destination, to you goals.  

I am sure you have some work to do in these areas – once you get down to it, please do yourself a favor, a big favor – think simple! 

Yours,

Chetan Walia