Sales Advice from the Dating World?

By Frank Hurtte

I recently talked with a young friend who seems to have it all. He’s well-educated, gainfully employed with an impressive income, and has a nice apartment. But he said these things aren’t worth much without a life partner and asked for my advice.

While I felt honored that he confided in me, I had a strong suspicion that my advice would be out of date and inappropriate. After f40-some years of marital bliss, I haven’t thought much about the whole dating concept in years. Plus, my dating life was void of social media or texting and the $6-billion-dollar online dating industry was still decades away. Any guidance I could offer would make about as much sense as suggesting he go down to the general store and help pretty girls load their buggies.

I couldn’t resist offering sage advice even if I knew nothing about the situation. Since dating is a numbers game, I told him he should go on lots of dates and let nature follow its course. Unfortunately, my advice lacked anything soundly tied to the mechanics of making anything happen. Consideration was not given to where and how to identify and approach potential mates, what messaging to use to cement the time and place for the date, and what to say on the date.

It turns out that my coaching on the subject at hand lacked the real information needed to move his life forward. I told him what he already knew, which left him more frustrated than ever.

In many ways, my dating advice mirrors the advice provided to new sellers in the knowledge-based distribution space. When new sellers start their careers, they naturally turn to their sales managers for assistance and coaching. Let’s compare typical guidance in both situations:

Sales Guidance Dating Advice

A list of accounts and/or geographic territory assigned to the salesperson. Where should this person live? Maybe long-distance relationships should be avoided.
The best accounts have XYZ profile. Your best life partners are between 22 and 26, have a job, share the same faith, and are single.
You should strive to make 12 calls per week. Set a goal to meet at least one potential date per week.
When you meet the people at your account, tell them about our wonderful company and outline our fabulous service. On your date, tell your date about your job, education, and what a wonderful person you are.
To help you get started, I am going to have you shadow a couple of our senior guys so you can see how they work with customers. To help you understand the dynamics of a good relationship, why don’t you come and have dinner with me and me wife.
Follow these guidelines and you will grow your business. Be sure to invite me to your wedding.

Of course, this information is simplified. Let’s do a deeper dive.

How do I make initial contact with these dates or customers?

Going back to my young dating friend, I could always share techniques for finding suitable mates. Back in my teen years, I searched the city directory for phone numbers of girls I knew from school and tried calling them – admittedly without much success. Today a person might recommend using some form of social media. See a potential person and make note of some event they plan to attend and then show up. It might work if you aren’t arrested for stalking along the way.

A more popular approach might be to try one of many dating apps. Tinder is the market leader, but this approach is also questionable. Dating expert and founder of Daytz.com, Amy Gemme, reports it takes 3,000 “swipes” for the average single male to find someone willing to go out on a date. Pretty slim odds, but if you are patient, you might have three dates in the next couple of years.

Just like in dating, the old methods and even the new-fangled shortcuts don’t work well in sales efforts.

Some new salespeople are still advised to drive from customer to customer attempting to make connections at their assigned accounts. With the best of intentions, they bounce from one empty customer lobby to another. When they happen to get an audience with someone, the person is likely not a good buying influence. In the rare case that a qualified buyer is identified, they are probably a low-level purchasing agent, which is only slightly better than nothing.

This back and forth creates a lot of activity that some new sellers feel deserves logging in their CRM as real live customer calls. This creates a rash of confusion with their managers. Why so many calls and no results?

Eventually, the sellers decided it might be better to try calling customers and asking for appointments. This presents another issue. Reaching out to customers in the post-Covid era is not as straightforward as one might imagine. Ten phone calls may result in leaving nine voicemails. The new seller leaves a polite message and sits back waiting for a returned call, but nothing happens. A week later the salesperson reaches out again – still no live person. At this point, the new seller faces a dilemma. Does this lack of response equate to flat-out rejection? Will continued calls be viewed as nuisance spamming? Should I move on and scratch this customer off my list? Often, there is no one capable of answering the question. This sounds a lot like ghosting in the dating world.

While the sales managers have some very old-fashioned experience with setting appointments with new customer contacts, the landscape today is different. Their advice may be as dated as my advice to my young friend. Just a few years ago, many companies had receptionists who could assist a new salesperson in finding the right time to contact a customer – but that practice is forever gone. Phone etiquette has changed. Thanks to the countless phone scammers and spammers, many people use voicemail as a first line of defense against time wasters. A call from anyone resembling a salesperson is ignored and messages are deleted. Further, younger generations have shifted from live phone calls to text messages as their preferred communication methods.

While necessary, reaching out to customers for appointments is the single most frustrating thing for new sellers. There are reports of sellers with strong potential giving up early because they somehow see their lack of results as personal failure.

The first-time dates and sales call

Regardless of your search method, it takes a lot of effort to make it to that first time face-to-face meeting called a date. Nerves play a factor in first-time meetings of any kind, whether they be dates or in person sales calls. Without guidance, the first meeting can be a flop.

My date-seeking friend, being a very practical engineer, a bit shy, and perhaps a bit of a nerd, could easily stumble on a first date. He would be wise to steer away from touting his mathematics prowess and potential income opportunities. Instead, I would suggest he ask questions to discover common interests.

Moving from dating to selling, let’s review a couple of points.

For a half-century, new distributor salespeople were instructed to launch first-time sales visits with a review of the distributor’s line card. New sales training included almost ritualistic attention to detail in how the line card was presented to the customer. Salespeople were often judged on their continuous possession of line cards just in case they ran into potential new customers.

Line cards contained the history of the founders of the company, pictures of warehouse locations, and even the mission statement of the distributor. New sellers were expected to recite this company trivia whether the customer was interested or not.

Since most sales managers grew up in this backdrop of line card-centric introduction, is it any wonder some are still instructing their new sales guys to follow this procedure?

In the “old days,” the line card introduction might have made sense. Today, a customer can access full company information and product offerings with a 20-second Google search. Research indicates customers are not keen on spending time with salespeople who they see as time wasters. A call that focuses on the seller’s company is not viewed as valuable.

Let’s switch back to dating, does all this line card stuff sound a bit like my young pal flipping out his resume, Boy Scout Merrit Badges, and signed health certificate? Based on Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, all that might have worked in mid-century 1800s England, but somehow, I doubt it will work today.

First-time sales visits should be focused on the customer. This means an interview with well thought out questions about the customer’s company, operating conditions, and market strategy. This positions the seller for better product recommendations and sets the stage for solution-based selling, which should be the goal of every distributor.

Bouncing from selling to dating and back again, sales managers and many of the more senior salespeople are fully aware of the ultimate goal of the process. In the case of finding the right mate, the characteristics of the ideal life partner are similar to the days when a younger version of me was searching for a wife. However, the steps required to find and approach them are completely different. The same applies to finding the right customer. But how?

Enter The New Sales Guy Project

Five years ago, I researched how new sellers could effectively launch their careers and territories. After detailed interviews, coaching sessions, and other work with over 200 new distributor salespeople, I amalgamated the information into a book to guide new salespeople and their managers on a proven path to success. The book is on Amazon and small groups of sellers are participating in a comprehensive overview of the book today.

As for the dating thing, you will need to find a different, possibly more hip dating mentor.

Frank Hurtte speaks, writes and consults with distributors on methods for adding bucks to their bottom line.He can be reached at frank@riverheightsconsulting.com or (563) 514-1104. 

Share This!

INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY MAGAZINE

The November/December issue of Industrial Supply magazine features an in-depth cover story about Kimball Midwest. Plus, we're featuring articles by contributing writers Dirk Beveridge, Frank Hurtte, and Mike Marks, as well as interviews with numerous product and distribution industry experts.

Read The Articles Read The Digital Edition

sponsored by Tompkins Industries