Hashemian Blog Web Tools, Financial Markets, Technology Friday, May 23, 2008 Sales, Politics, and Religion  For a brief period in my career I was encouraged to try my hand at sales. I was ok at it and made decent commissions but in the end I knew that sales wasn't my calling and I returned to my passion, technology, mainly programming. That brief stint taught me one lesson in salesmanship. When on a sales call, steer away from passionate topics, specially when you don't know which way the prospect is leaning. References to religion and politics should be avoided in favor of more neutral topics, unless the product is geared towards a certain persuasion. Today I was shown an online demo of a Web product. The salesman had worked hard to secure a slice of my time to showcase his product. The part I found curious was the demo Web pages I was being shown. They included news articles about the Pope's Visit with Bush, Christianity, and the Church. Now I have no problem with these topics when used in the context of product demonstration, but I wondered if the salesperson knew about my liberal, religion-free mindset, would he have still picked these topics for his product demo. The salesman never lead the conversation towards politics or religion, and we kept the conversation on-topic, centered around the features of the product and the cost of implementation. But I could imagine that another liberal person might have reacted negatively to all this and written the whole thing off. The point is that avoiding emotionally charged topics such as religion and politics, however indirect, is a prudent policy when making a sales pitch to someone you don't know. This salesman may experience much higher success if he picks safer, more neutral examples for his demonstrations. For example, I'm not interested in team sports, but I doubt anyone would have a negative reaction to samples depicting baseball bats . Why take a chance on distracting or alienating your prospects when your goal is to secure their business? sales,politics,religion,pope Labels: politics, religion, sales <Sales, Politics, and Religion> // posted by rh 0 comments Tuesday, December 04, 2007 High-Tech Sales Pitches  So today I'm at my desk in the office fiddling with a new Web accelerator toy, er appliance, and I get the dreaded call transfer from the front desk. The Web caching box must've had fried my common sense and I took the call. It was a sales pitch. People who call my number at the office usually dial my extension directly. Even then, they get a call-screening message asking them to identify themselves. If I am at my desk and if it's urgent, I pick up the call, otherwise they go into the voicemail and I get back to them later. Generally, the only times calls are transferred to my extension via the front desk are when someone calls up the office and asks for the Web guy or the programmer or the developer and those are typically salespeople pushing a new and exciting product or a service or the survey guys asking for 5 minutes that last a good half hour. The sales guy was peddling Microsoft and Cisco training courses. With my mind still on Web caching, I half-heartedly listened to the man drone on effusively about their courses and their various membership levels. He had me browse to their Web site and took me through some of their marketing pages. Not wanting to be discourteous, I obliged, but he must've realized that I wasn't exactly the type of ready and willing customer he was hoping for. Undaunted, he pushed on buttering me up with compliments that I was a part of an exclusive group chosen to receive the course material at a substantial discount. I finally had to cut him off and asked the inevitable question, "How much?" Sensing slippage, he promptly handed the call over to one of their professional and cheerful salespeople with the hopes that the new guy would close the deal. When I resisted, the cheers suddenly gave way to a quick thank-you and a phone number to call back and that was the end of it. I don't understand this. I mean I know techies are eccentric and lack some social skills, but are we taken for easy prey? I could almost hear the salesman's thoughts through all the pleasantries, "Buy it, you dumb ass. Take the bait. Buy the stupid course." I suppose there are some of us out there who would succumb to the art of persuasion. I've had my weak moments too, but not today. If only he was peddling a Web caching courseware today. sales pitch,telemarketing,web caching,web accelerator Labels: customer service, sales <High-Tech Sales Pitches> // posted by rh 0 comments

Links Technorati Profile TMCnet.com ARCHIVES 09/01/2003 - 10/01/2003 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004 04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005 11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006 01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006 04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006 12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007 05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007 09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007 12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008 03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008 04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008 05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008 06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008 07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008 09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008 10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008 11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008 12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009 01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009 02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009 03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009 04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009 05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009 06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009 07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009 08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009 09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009 10/01/2009 - 11/01/2009 11/01/2009 - 12/01/2009

هاشمیان.com

 Home

 Blog

 Web Tools
Usage

 News

 Articles

 FAQ

 About

 Contact

 Financial Markets Book
Read Complete Book

Search Amazon: