Whilst walking to MAP cafeteria yesterday and overhearing our class’s very own Zach Hanson discuss the techniques this season’s “Bachelor” employed to lose the trust of the audience (and I suppose maybe the women?), I was struck with a thought: the bachelor is a show all about sales.

Thank you Prof Sweet for moderating as Zach and Chaz gave us illumination on how sales relationships can parallel with romantic relationships! Zach and Chaz, y’all did great, I think we all learned (and laughed together) a lot.

Similarities between Sales and Relationships

  1. Trust is Key. You don’t want to move forward with someone you don’t trust, and in the end, trust is much more important to the relationship (either kind) than a charming introduction.
  2. Each party has an end goal, throughout the process we’ll see how compatible these goals are. In dating, both parties have hopes and dreams for the end goal and those may or may not line up. If they don’t, same as in sales, it can still be a positive interaction to acknowledge this and move on. In sales, more than dating, it might be helpful to make a referral for someone who can fit the need better, although that has worked out for some couples.
  3. Time and consistency are a good measure of genuineness. If the personality you show to a prospect is artificial, they might realize- especially over time- if you’re being inconsistent that the front is dishonest. This generally terminates all potential (or at least should).

8 thoughts on “Reflections on Zach Hanson, Guest Speaker”
  1. First off, Zach Hanson is a legend. Second, I love thinking about the connection between love and sales. It’s super helpful to illustrate sales. Thank you for the way you so concisely distilled so many abstract emotional concepts into digestible, concrete examples. Great read!

  2. It was interesting to see how everyday relationships are so intertwined with sales. It sounds so random but it makes so much sense. I think trust can not be emphasized enough either, any relationship in life will never go well without trust. Sales people have the stigma of not being trust and it is important to start and erase that negativity.

  3. Zach and Chaz are fantastic and very intelligent gentlemen who are wise beyond their years. I was very impressed with their ability to provide a lot of insight into how the bachelor contains a lot of real-life non-sales selling methods.

  4. Great post! You did a great job at very clearly outlining similarities between sales and relationships. It is a great analogy and this explained it very clearly.

  5. I thought this was very interesting. I didn’t see a connection between sales and relationship, but now seeing Chaz and Zach up there really helped me understand it a lot better. I think Chaz was too happy and needs to be knocked down a peg or two. BUt overall great job!

  6. It was fun to see the conversation go from sales relating to The Bachelor to personal questions that went way off the rails. There were some great takeaways though.

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