Friday night is movie night and this past Friday, the movie of choice was Die Hard. While this movie is one of the most unlikely places to find an example of selling, I was surprised when about half way through the movie, a perfect example of not so great selling transpired. I didn’t link the clip because it contains some not so Grove City approved language and behavior, but I will do my best to describe it.
At the beginning of the scene, the hostages (who are all business men and women) are talking in a lobby area. One character, Ellis, decides that he is going to go talk to the terrorist because “babe, I negotiate million dollar deals for breakfast, I think I can handle this euro trash”. Once Ellis gets into the room, he starts the conversation with a spark of honesty by saying “let’s be straight ok?”. Unfortunately, that’s about all Ellis got right in this sales conversation. After he got his customer’s attention, Ellis started assuming too much about his customer, who is the terrorist in this situation. Instead of listening to what his customer wanted or needed, Ellis told his customer what he thought they needed. As the scene continues, the conversation eventually takes a deadly turn for Ellis. Since Ellis based his entire conversation off of several assumptions, the customer was not satisfied once Ellis tried to close the deal and Ellis ended up dead.
In a real life selling situation, assuming too much about your customer can leave the customer unsatisfied, searching for a different solution, or solving a problem they do not actually have. While Die Hard might be a somewhat extreme example of selling, in the right situation, assuming too much about your customer might just get you killed!
In case inquiring minds want to know, here is the link to the scene from Die Hard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-5mMUwahJY, but as previously stated, view at your own discretion.
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