I want to start this post with a question, were you the kind of kid who believed brown cows made chocolate milk? If you were, you may have been way ahead of the curve on this one.
We like to think that because we are college students, born and raised in one of the most literate countries in the world, that when somebody says something, we will understand it. Reality, however, is often not so kind to us. Misunderstandings happen all the time, but our ability to communicate hinges on whether or not we can navigate these misunderstandings and find a common ground. This would be easy, if we all had the same ideas for what certain words or ideas meant. The problem is that one person might think Radical means cool or sweet, while another might think that it means violent revolutionary.
So, what do brown cows have to do with this? For most of us, we learned since we were kids that brown cows make regular milk. Imagine if we hadn’t learned. It would be bad for the CEO of a chocolate milk company to buy only brown cows and expect to reap profit. But we spoke up, whether it was to defend our point or to ask for clarification and learned that brown cows make normal milk. We might’ve felt a little embarrassed, maybe even cried a little (I feel your pain). But we adjusted our memory and continued on.
In the same way if you’re in a business, always ask about anything you don’t understand. Even if you’re 99% sure what it means, don’t stop until you reach 100% sure. You’ll probably feel embarrassed asking what why a new business is talking about their most valuable player, only to learn that they’re talking about a minimum viable product. But now you know, and you will be able to be far more helpful to your client if you know what they are saying. That’s our job as salespeople, to understand the client and offer help in the form of our products or recommendations. Therefore, when we don’t clarify we’re telling the client “I don’t care enough about you to want to understand you”. So, make sure you understand everything you client is talking about, even if it makes you feel stupid to ask, that way you can offer your best recommendations.
BoweryJE22
This is a unique topic! I appreciated the approachable analogy, and how you delivered tips and soothed fears at the same time. You also went through the process of addressing rebuttal arguments, and your response! I agree 100% -we need to always be asking more questions! Great post.
I really like how this connects to the information gap and how the consumer now has more information than the seller does. Sometimes pretending like you have a lack of power can actually give you power to make a sale by being on the same level as the person you’re selling to
Grest post!
Your analogy with brown cows making chocolate milk was very interesting.