For sales class, we walked into HAL 308 believing it would be yet another lecture by Dr. Sweet on something like asking good questions or buoyancy, but within minutes we were ushered out of the classroom with a mission: sell as many ducks for the ABT rubber duck derby as possible. We were only given some order forms, an envelope for cash, and one rubber duck. The mission and goal were well defined, but there was no sales script, no list of clients or leads; just the order to sell. I knew important sales lessons learned from class and my experience as a sales rep would be important.
To begin, I had no faith I could sell very well to college students. It was $2 to $3 for a rubber duck and on a random Monday midday not many students would be willingly to throw away a couple dollars. So I began to head to professors in their offices, calling back to my door-to-door sales days with Hawx Pest Control. I knew it was important to not loom over their office, but to keep an open stance so they could look out when answering the door. I also knew I couldn’t be as “less honest” with smart professors who taught me and gave me grades in other classes, so I needed to approach the sales calls with grace and honestly. I began always with “Could I borrow 2-3 minutes of your time?” and that got me my ticket in. I would ask them about their weekend plans and get them talking, them ask them if they knew about a campus event the ABTs were doing on Wolf Creek called the Duck Derby and ask if they had any interest in attending. From there, if they expressed interest, I could relate to them how they could get a duck to be in the race and how it supported breast cancer relief for women. If they said they didn’t care, I shifted the conversation to breast cancer awareness and how getting a duck would support victims.
This was my common sales call I developed among the professors I visited to try to sell ducks during class time on Monday. In a positive way, I found out through walking them through a sales talk, I could get higher priced sales of multiple ducks, but at the cost of time due to only having 50 minutes to make multiple sales. It was a great experience to use new sales tactics I had learned in class in conjunction with my past as a door-to-door salesman.
RMcIlwain
It seems that your strategy was considerably better than mine. That was a much better way to do it; a more chill, leisure based sales call. Mine consisted of bombarding students as they entered or left Hicks dining hall. I suppose perhaps the stress got to me, or the Chick-Fil-A break got in the way. Either way, very well done and smart move.
I think your approach to this was very smart, sell to the people who have the money. My team figured this out a little too late. I like this more chilled out way of sales rather than shoving it down students throats who probably don’t reallt have a ton of money to buy a duck and if they do won’t.