Customers Can Be Fickle

For the last few weeks, I did ride-alongs with a bunch of salespeople who sell their products in their prospects' homes. Here's the story of one interaction I witnessed:

The prospect thought it was time to replace her product (let's call it the "widget"). After fifteen years of owning her widget, the widget was worn out. She scheduled an in-home sales appointment with the salesperson.

During the course of the sales call, the salesperson encouraged the prospect to consider going with a particular type of widget (let's call it the "type A" widget). The type A widget had some features that makes it appealing to many prospects, and it sells at a high rate when compared to the type B widget, which is another type of widget that the salesperson offers.

The customer said she preferred the type B widget. The salesperson responded by presenting the benefits of the type A widget in even greater detail in hopes of convincing the prospect to go with the type A widget. After considerable discussion, the prospect finally made an announcement with pronounced conviction:

"You couldn't pay me enough money to put a type A widget in my home!"

Five minutes passed. More discussion. More dialogue. More interaction. The prospect and salesperson decided to take a closer look at the prospect's current widget (the one she has owned for fifteen years).

Here's what they both discovered:

The prospect's current widget was a type A widget.

The prospect had owned a type A widget for fifteen years, yet just moments earlier had announced that the salesperson couldn't pay her enough money to get her to put a type A widget in her home! Amazing.

In selling, it doesn't matter if the prospect is right. It doesn't matter if the salesperson is right. All that matters is giving the customer whatever it is the customer wants to buy at any given moment.

In some matters, the customer is always right - even if they're wrong.

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Here's a good read: check out Ian Brodie's The Myth of Goal Setting. Urban legends exist in the sales guru world, too!

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Selling to Consumers Sales Tips Newsletter.