rethink(ip)

Rethinking the sales pitch - are you ignoring someone?

Posted by J Matthew Buchanan at September 21, 2005 10:29 AM

Last night, my wife and I wandered through a few furniture stores after we celebrated our anniversary with a nice dinner.  In the last store, one saleswoman followed us throughout our entire survey of the establishment (about 30 minutes).  She asked my wife several questions that went way beyond “is there anything in particular you are looking for.”

The saleswoman ignored me….literally ignored me…the entire time (she even introduced herself to my wife and asked my wife her name….and never even glanced over at me).

Ignoring me was a safe bet, right?  After all, it’s a furniture store…and I’m a man.  With a wife.  Is there any chance in the world that I’m a potential customer?  The saleswoman is just smartly concentrating her efforts on the likely decision-maker, isn’t she?

Funny thing is this…I am the potential customer.  My wife and I are looking for something in particular — furniture for my home office.  She’ll have input, of course, but it’s my office and my furniture…so I’m deciding and I’m buying.

I snickered to myself as we left the store, reflecting on the lesson a senior attorney gave me when I was first staring out:  “Treat everyone as a potential client.  You never, ever know.”

Think of how embarrassing it would be if you paid exclusive attention to one person in a group because you thought, for whatever reason, that they were the decision-maker regarding the procurement of your services and it turned out that another person, one whom you ignored, either had input on the decision or was in fact the decision-maker.

And you never know, the person you ignore may later become the decision-maker.

Truth is, there’s no way to have perfect knowledge on the issue of who controls or has input on the decision to hire you as a service provider.  As a result, the safe approach is to treat everyone as a potential client.  Hence, the senior attorney’s lesson to me.

And that’s not just good business…it’s also a sound approach to human interaction.

Here’s the fun part of my story.  I actually saw some furniture I like in that particular store.  I’m going back in a few days…without my wife and with the checkbook.  That’s going to be fun.

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