On Friday, February 6, Evan Adams from NoWait came to our class to speak about the successful app that he has been an integral part of. NoWait is an app used by restaurants and its customers allowing them to view the wait list and add their party’s name to it from their phone. Evan’s main duty for the company is to continue increasing their number of clients. Currently, NoWait has 800,000 individuals who have downloaded the app and are in 4,000 of the 250,000 restaurants in the U.S.
One comment that Evan said truly stuck with me. He said “a lot of times the best sales people are entrepreneurial” at heart. One of the members on the sales team at NoWait started a new saying he uses after every deal he closes. It is something along the lines of “I am glad we were able to reach this agreement. From now on your are my boss and I work for you” and he proceeds to hand them all his contact information and encourages they reach out at anytime. That’s when it clicked. A salesman is truly running his own small business within a larger entity. If he wants to be successful he needs to take extra steps in order to grow those working relationships. Each client is like another business that he is a part of and he must treat differently. Once individuals in sales begin to realize the way to success is by giving of yourself. The more you are there for your client and go the extra mile, the more your personal business will grow. Salesman truly are entrepreneurial, whether they are prepared to realize it or not. 
testacr22
This is a great point. I think sales people would perform better if they viewed their sales as a business. I really enjoyed many of Adams’ sales strategies and he is obviously doing very well in his business. It is important for sales people to be willing to help their client in any way possible instead of walking away from the client once the sale is made. I liked that NoWait has a whole team in charge of making sure that clients are happy and that they come back.
I love the idea that a salesperson has to be entrepreneurial. It really is important for a salesperson to be able to adjust their tactics depending on the person they are selling to. There is no cookie cutter way to make a sale, but it is important to be genuine and sincerely care about all your customers. No Wait really jump started it’s business based off this mentality. They catered their sales approach to different buyers, but still keep the relational foundation with every sale.
So true Brian, I love this alternative way of looking at business! I think that treating each customer as a “separate business” is such a great way to approach clients, and show them that you are fully committed to the relationship you have begun with them, immediately building trust, showing them that you are a businessperson of integrity! These are some qualities which the stigma of business has gotten far removed from, and so this is a really great way to address that!