I’m a big fan of The Office, and it was really fun and interesting to see sales concepts applied to such funny situations. Interestingly, my least favorite character on the show was Michael. His weirdness and awkwardness annoyed me, and I viewed him as the worst employee at Dunder Miflfin, and certainly their worst salesman. I still see him as the worst employee, for numerous legitimate reasons, but the presentation the other day made me change my mind about his sales skills. When I first saw that episode and got to that scene where him and Jan start selling my first thought was: “Michael’s going to ruin something again.” I did not expect him to make a sale by the end of the episode and when he did I brushed it off as drunk luck. When Jan tried to interview and he shushed her I assumed he had just been annoyed by her typical sell and didn’t want to hear it again. I see now that everything he did was at least a good execution of the sales process. Bonding and rapport is important, though he spent a long time on this step. Most importantly he let him talk when he knew that he had stirred something. They never even discussed the material Jan brought. She wanted to spill the beans, but Michael knew better.
BoweryJE22
it’s always interesting to look at characters from a different angle like this, especially those that seem somewhat incompetent or poor. It shows them in a different light, many times selling in different ways, both sales and non-sales selling