A visit from Grove City’s alumnus was well received when Chad Cobb spoke in our class about his experience in sales. As we have been addressing in class, being more interested in the customer is much more important now than making the sale. Being genuine and showing interest in the interests of others is the foundation of building trust.
Chad actually implemented many sales techniques during his time in the classroom by doing several things.
1. He asked many open ended questions
2. He listened much more than your average professor would
3. He wanted to know what information we wanted to learn from him
4. Related to us with his life story
1. Open Ended Questions
These are always good in sales scenarios, however, the way Chad employed them in a classroom setting, and we’ve seen Professor Sweet do the same, it makes the audience more invested as they share their personal opinion.
2. Listen More Than You Talk
People love to hear themselves talk and Chad gave a huge opportunity to the class to steer the conversation toward whatever we wanted to learn.
3. The Real Lesson
A person who takes over a class one time is not going to know the students and therefore must learn what is important to the student during the 50 minutes he has. Chad did this is a great way by asking people to talk about their sales experiences and through this, certain topic of concern would arise which he could address.
4. Telling Stories
Everyone is more interested in a story than in reading straight data and facts. Chad implemented this last technique by telling us his life story and some of his experiences as a salesman and the lessons he learned. He was a very positive person who loves people and helping others as he showed us through his time in the class
BoweryJE22
One of my favorite aspects about entrepreneurship is how relevant it is in non-sales settings. Chad Cobb was able to use sales strategies that he had learned to better communicate with us as his audience without sounding like he was using some kind of technique on us. Instead, his interaction with us felt completely natural.
These are great tools on how to make yourself, as a sales person, appear authentic and genuine. In today’s society, which may seem at times deceitful, being a sales person that is greedy is simply ineffective. Today’s selling world requires people to be genuine, and these are great tools for doing so. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for summarizing more! This post can help the whole class with studying! I appreciate your elaboration on each of the four concepts.