Welcome first time visitor. If you like what you see, you can receive free twice weekly posts by email or RSS feed. See the right side of the screen for instructions; it only takes 10 seconds. You will receive a verification email if you choose to receive by email. If you don't immediately receive this, please check your spam folder. We will never sell or misuse your email address.

People ask me how I come up with material for this blog. It’s actually quite easy; all I have to do is pay attention to the sales behaviors that I observe every day. Some of the stuff I see truly fits in the category of, “You could not make this up.” Below is a conversation that I observed between someone that was in the final stages of making a big ticket purchase and the CEO of the selling organization who was “helping” his salesperson close the deal. I am not making up the dialogue that follows.

Prospect: “I have a few more questions that need to be answered before we ink the contract. I was hoping to hear from you last week regarding those questions. Are you still interested in moving forward with this?”

CEO: “Oh yes, we are very interested in having you as a customer. I would have gotten back with you last week but I’m just a busy CEO.”

Despite the CEO’s best efforts at being the CEO of the sales prevention department, the prospect actually did sign the contract and purchase the service. The customer in this situation always referred to the CEO as Jason “I’m just a busy CEO” Short (not his real name) after that. One cautionary note, CEO’s and presidents can absolutely be the worst people to bring along on sales calls. Don’t assume they have a clue about selling just because they might be paid more than you.

Where did this CEO blow it? He blew it because he made it loud and clear that the prospect was not his number one priority. The CEO also communicated that he thought he was a higher priority than the prospect. Individual prospects and customers want to believe that we build our world around them. Even though they know that we deal with other companies, they want to at least feel like they are: number one in our minds, our only customer and have 100% of our attention. Think about your personal experience with doctors. Even though you might be visiting a doctor that has 500 patients, if he or she can make you feel like you’re their only patient it scores big points with you. The same is true for you and your customers and prospects. Make each of them feel very special; they’ll pay you for your attention.

Tags: service

We'd like to hear your feedback on this post - feel free to comment below!