In a conversation with my dad yesterday, he mentioned how much he disliked being sold to by salespeople these days. Being curious (especially given that I was thinking of a profession in sales), I asked him why – and he told me that he disliked how stupid he felt a lot of the time when people tried to sell him using the lingo of today, that he simply didn’t understand. A lot of the time we talk to older people almost exactly like how we talk about things to our peers – we talk about apps, the internet and things that to most older people; they don’t even know the concept much less how things work. When as sales people we alienate the people we talk to by being unrelatable and by making them feel stupid; there’s no way that they want to do sales with us.
How then do we handle this? I think the best way is by explaining things without being condescending. Its easy to baby people who don’t know what we’re talking about, and condescend – however condescension is easily identifiable and most people don’t like feeling that way. So I think its best to understand when someone doesn’t know what you’re talking about, make it clear – and do so by avoiding lingo, terms and explanations that you know they wouldn’t understand.
testacr22
A very “intriguing” story here. One of the reasons that I love talking to the older generation is that they provide a different perspective on what the following generations are getting wrong. Good stuff.