The Professor Sweet Prospecting Call

I learned a lot in today’s sales class by practicing what we’ve been learning in class, and having mixed success. Instead of having a normal lecture, Professor Sweet sent the students out around campus to sell rubber ducks for the ducky derby. The ducky derby is a campus-wide event hosted by the ABTs and Okies, for which participants can donate X amount to purchase a certain number of small ($2) or large ($3) ducks to race down wolf creek. The first duck to cross the finish line wins! This year, the Greek groups selected WIN Victim Services as their charity of choice. Our goal for this class was to roam campus and prospect for sales in order to raise the most money possible. My team (including Ian and Truman) first went to the E+I offices and then to the Crawford offices in hopes of reaching an untapped market. While the search area did not play a large role, our sales pitches did. In the end, we raised $81 and learned these lessons.

First, it was initially awkward to go up to people and ask them to spend money on our product, even though it was a charity. We did not want to be nuisances. I eventually realized that a perspective shift was needed…we should have approached the selling as a question of are you someone who would want to support a charity, compared to are you someone who will give us money. The latter involves asking more questions and focusing on the donation/charity aspect, instead of focusing on the money you could spend. Too often, when confronted with the question “how much is it?,” we jumped right into a pushy rant about $2 vs. $4 options and cash vs. venmo. Instead of jumping on the first opportunity to discuss money, we should have asked more questions. Professor Sweet taught me this firsthand in this setting.

My group decided to give him a call and open with the classic line “I’ve got bad news….this is a prospecting call…”. After getting his attention, I asked him if he was familiar with the charity and told him about the event. He then asked what people normally spend and I immediately jumped in to the money, instead of answering something like “well some people spend $2, and others $3, is that something you might be interested in doing?” The latter response is open ended and discuss the budget but does not add as much pressure.

In the end, I learned to prospect by aiming to find good candidates, instead of forcing sales. I also learned to ask better questions instead of rushing to talk about my product.