Sales Gimmicks

Sales gimmicks have always puzzled me. Often, I see some potential educational value in them, for the Sales person, but, almost always, they seem to be counterproductive, in application. During the past week, we’ve been “back home”, in Southern California, for a wedding. Ironically, in what is, for me, a pretty far from “work” setting, I saw a remarkable example of this.


There I was, babysitting my seven month old Grandson (Jake) at the front of a hair and nail salon, while Ruth (my Wife) and Jill (my step-Daughter) were having their hair done. While some concoction was doing its magic on Jill’s hair, she came to sit with Jake and me. As Jill was flipping through a magazine, a woman appeared in the exterior doorway that separated our chairs. Facing Jill, she said something like, “You seemed to be interested in our catalog. Would you like to order some of our products?” As she said this, she pointed at a catalog of cosmetic products that was laying on an end table next to Jill. I won’t mention the cosmetic company’s name but it rhymes with Rave On. Anyway, Jill said she wasn’t interested and the woman responded by saying, “Are you sure? I’m pretty sure I saw you starting to reach for it?” I won’t bore you with the rest of this verbal exchange but it didn’t get any better.

As I reflected on this, I considered that the cosmetic company representative had probably been taught the tactic I observed. My assumption was that the intent of this teaching was to aid a Sales person in initially connecting with a Prospect, if they found them actually showing interest in the company catalog. In this case, the misapplication of the training resulted in a disconnect, as well as a bad taste in Jill’s mouth (and mine) for ever doing any business with that cosmetic company.

In addition to the misapplication of well-intentioned Sales gimmicks, there are those that are simply devious. A good example of this is one that was included in my training for a summer “Sales” job when I was in college. This involved selling vending machine franchises to individuals. The tactic was to hand the Prospect a pen and get them to sign meaningless documents during my presentation so that when it came time to ask them to sign a contract; they’d already be comfortable in signing things for me. Since I always try to take something good from every experience, I suppose I gained in grasping an understanding of the psychology involved with this. Otherwise, I view this as a skill of a Charlatan, not of a Sales person.

And, I guess this last point is my primary objection to the use of Sales gimmicks … they, generally, seem to be the skills of a con artist, not of a business professional. Since my business card says, Consultative Sales Professional, that probably makes me even more sensitive to this. My view of “consultative” involves the aim to sort of “crawl inside the other person’s skin”, to understand their goals and challenges from their perspective and to have a much better understanding of how your company’s offerings can help with that? Manipulating the Prospect doesn’t seem to fit in with this approach very well.

Are there examples of more legitimate and productive Sales gimmicks out there? Please let us know your experience, one way or the other. As always, we welcome your sharing to benefit others.

Comments
 
Justin Hitt Says:


November 18, 2008 at 11:07 am edit

I make a skill of finding unusual sales gimmicks that translate well into the business-to-business selling space, and agree with you about the garbage approaches some managers teach sales people.



Managers and sales people alike seem to miss the attention part of a sales gimmick, it’s not so much for you to attach to your prospect, but instead to get your prospect to contact you (and qualify themselves.)



Thanks for highlighting this problem, I’m certain other observers of these “gimmicks” feel the same way, disgusted.



Best,



Justin