After having my sales conversation with Professor Sweet I thought that it would be helpful to share some useful tips on what I did to get through it as well as I feel like I did.
Professor Sweet started me right off the bat with a curve ball. I had put in my prompt that I would be selling to the manager of a famous symphony but when I prompted that he just switched right around and said he worked for a large music store. This really shocked me (even though it shouldn’t have) because I was planning for the other one. Since he did this I was forced to think on my feet and go with it.
I decided that I should just start asking questions to understand what kind of business that he was because I didn’t know anything about it because it was all new to me. This was a very helpful thing for me to do because I got to understand his music store and the way that it worked as well as why they might be interested in doing business together. Also, asking the questions was one of the sales techniques he harped on so much in class.
After I got over the shock factor of what happened I realized that any of my pre-planned questions were tossed out the window. I learned that I was truly in a sales conversation that I knew very little about. This was a cool and scary experience because I obviously wanted to to well and sell my company and myself but I also got the opportunity to learn from this.
The most difficult part of the whole conversation was how Professor Sweet tried to turn it around on me. He would start trying to take over the conversation but YOU CAN’T LET HIM!!! He would ask questions and try to step on your toes before you could turn it back around. My tip here is to be persistent and know that whomever you are selling to for this conversation is doing it to mess with you and make your life harder.
If I had one thing to say about this it is just to be relaxed and collected and have a good time. It is pretty fun doing this and it is not an experience you will get often.
BoweryJE22
Thanks for the helpful advice! Your tip to be quick on your feet reminds me a lot of Dan Pink’s instructions to salespeople to be buoyant. He also says that it is crucial for salespeople to be able to go with the flow but still maintain control of sales conversations.
You go Zack! You didn’t appear shocked, you seemed calm cool and collected! So great work both with the conversation and in sharing your thoughts, much appreciated!
This is really insightful of you, I think it’s clear that you’ve taken this as a learning opportunity. I think your conversation is very representative of real business where you can be thrown for a loop any second. You really did handle the curve ball well and now you will be more prepared to handle them in the future!
I think that you really handled the situation well. By what you said in your conversation with Professor Sweet, I wouldn’t have even known he switched it around on you. I think that he made it more real for you by doing this because you never really know what you are getting into in a sales conversation. Great job!
Its always great to prepare for your customer, but when it goes as unexpected things can get tough. Taking your time isn’t as weird as we always think it is. Take some time, think about the best answer and continue the conversation and keep killing it!