Most sales pitches are horrible - Part 2

By Michael Morrow

December 05, 2012

KEYWORDS carpet / customer / pitches / sales / tactics / technician
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Last week, we considered how you must closely analyze your “sales pitches” so that when you offer an add-on sale, it is to the benefit of your customer and they don’t feel they are being “sold”.

This week, let’s go deeper and see what happens in the home.

When one walks into a customer’s home trying to pitch extra services beyond what was ordered in the initial stages of the job (protectors, deodorizers, tile cleaning, upholstery, etc.) it signals to a perceptive client that you are only thinking about “What is in it for me.” If you are not careful, you can come off like a snake oil sales person trying to hustle them.

In the world of sales idiom, consumers do embrace the fallacy that all sales people are con men. They — in error — see us as shady and dishonest.

The customer may not hear what you are saying when they believe they are being “talked into” buying something. No one likes being sold. The customer feels cheated or violated.

Some customers may be justified in feeling this way. Here’s an example. One technician I know was jubilant about upselling a big job. He stated “I got her!” I asked what he meant. He said “I won, she lost!”

When one has that type of approach in their sales pitch, they create an adversarial relationship. The customer called back the next day… and wanted her money back, because she felt cheated.

Avoid using ‘snake-oil’ tactics

“I got them,” “I played them” or “I sure beat them down” because they were able to use snake oil tactics to trap a customer into saying “yes” is not the way to increase income.

Snake oil tactics are sales pitches stated in a way to manipulate and coerce a customer into a buying something they didn’t want.

For example, a technician may say, “Wow, I can really smell the urine in your carpet, can’t you?” What is the customer going to say to that? Embarrassment follows, as does the sale of a deodorizing treatment.

The technician used snake oil tactics to make the sale — but not necessarily a happy customer.

Sure the client may need a pet odor treatment for the carpet. There are more civilize ways to break the bad news.

Changing your presentation

You have read some strong language that helps our industry to look at itself. There is only one way of changing a presentation. You need to throw out all sales-sounding pitches.

Once you’ve done that, the secret to successfully closing more jobs than imaginable is to genuinely care about people. You need to be genuine in your interactions and throw away robotic sounding sales pitches.

So quit wasting your time with sales pitches and focus on how genuine you can be with a client.

Be willing to focus the energy on a heart-felt manifestation of you trying to help them.

Whenever you see something worthy of discussion, ask how you would want someone to speak to your spouse. When you use this rule of thumb, you will become more natural in your interactions with any customer and the aroma of your conversation will be inviting.

Michael Morrow is a weekend consultant for Goldmarc, speaker and an IICRC approved instructor. He is the author of the book If You Don't Believe It, You Can't Upsell It. Morrow lives in Scottsdale, AZ, with his wife Leslie. He can be reached at (480) 388-4742 or MichaelDMorrow1@Gmail.com.