Sales meeting time! Hope your week is off to a great start. Normally we talk in our meetings about what to do in certain situations, but this week we will talk about what not to do. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I have a recent experience I can use to highlight something you should not do as a salesperson – lose the trust of your clients.
I have a car I leased about two and a half years ago and I had to take it in recently for usual maintenance. While I was there, I needed to confirm something I had noticed on some paperwork and ended up sort of talking to two people who were in the same area. One was the person I was directed to see to try and answer my question, and the other was someone just standing nearby.
As my question got answered, the ‘other’ salesperson said something about running the numbers and that this might be a good time to just trade my current car in on a new model if I’m planning to lease again as the more 2025 models that come out, the less mine will be worth from here. Having not been born yesterday, I knew what I was about to get into when I said, ‘let’s do it, run those numbers.’
As I was in a huge hurry (as in no hurry at all but please get me out of here), I asked him to email me the numbers. As I started to walk out the original salesperson walked with me. Now, keep in mind the other guy had said it ‘might’ be a good time to trade it in and he had given me several reasons why I should at least look at it since I was planning to do another lease.
As we are walking to my car, I could tell the seller was less comfortable talking than he was when the other guy was around. I asked him what he thought the numbers might look like and he replied, “You’re definitely going to have some equity coming your way, plus since this is your second time doing this with us, they’re going to do whatever they can to take care of you. If we need to get silly, we will do it.”
Whatever. It wasn’t as if I was holding my breath about the whole thing, but then when he sent over the numbers, as you probably already guessed, there was no equity, in fact it was upside down a little bit. To make matters worse, when I called him on it, the response back was, ‘well, there’s so many 2025’s out already.’
I thought that was fast from the day before when the number of 2025’s out was the exact reason to do this, now it is the reason it may not make sense. I suggested we get that small negative number back to even with some of the ‘silliness’ we had talked about the day before, and that if we could, I was ready to proceed. Now, I was told the car I wanted was “so popular” they were already giving me the best deal possible.
So, what’s the lesson here?
The lesson here is don’t lie to your clients no matter what. Especially when you don’t have to. Not that the seller knew this, but my expectation going in was to be flat and just get a new model and be done with it. However, the seller foolishly lifted my expectations and then on top of it threw in the whole deal about ‘getting silly’ and doing ‘whatever it takes’ because of my loyalty. He could have said nothing, and we would have ended up in a much different situation.
I realize this is an extreme example, but you get the point. Your trust, your word, is a huge part of what you offer. A trusted resource for that company who brings ideas and solutions that help them drive revenue. Do not lose that trust.
I have seen salespeople lose the trust of a client a few different ways. One time a regional client had an order that wasn’t running for a few weeks at the very beginning of a campaign. The seller had made a mistake but instead of owning up to it made up a story about how the traffic system had completely screwed things up for several clients and it was a software error and a big mess. Not that big of a deal until the client comes into the office at renewal time and somehow ends up alone with a traffic manager and mentions the ‘incident’ and how horrible it must have been for them. Yep, the traffic person replied, ‘I have been here for ten years and that has never happened, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Whoops.
Another time I had a salesperson who went ahead and made the mistake of answering ‘yes’ when an auto dealer asked if he was getting the best deal possible and that he wouldn’t possibly see or hear of anyone else in town getting a better deal. Turns out the same salesperson had offered a better deal to a smaller dealership and figured no way this other dealer ever finds that out. Which was all well and good until the larger dealership needed a new manager and hired the guy from the smaller lot who was able to verify that he had, in fact, been offered a better deal. That was an expensive mistake.
It just isn’t worth it in the end. On the risk-reward scale, it leans heavily to the left.
I say this all the time, remember that you, the salesperson, are part of the ‘added value’ – a big part of it. You have industry knowledge, you are an expert at putting campaigns together, you are creative and help them write great ad copy. You’ve had campaigns fail and have learned from those as well. You bring a lot to the table, but if you take trust out of the picture, you will never build the right relationship with that client.
The real ‘silly’ thing in my situation is that I am going to lease the car anyway, because I don’t have the time to waste on haggling back and forth to save $40 a month. However, I’ll never refer anyone to the seller or the place and no matter what they tell me moving forward, I’ll think they’re lying to me. This is how the auto industry gets the reputation that it gets…sound familiar?
Do better. Make smart decisions when you are talking with clients and be careful what you say. Always remember what one good, long-term client means to your bottom line and do what I often suggest, which is to treat every client as if they are the last one you will ever get unless they refer someone to you.
We deal with enough fires in our business, don’t add to it by being a salesperson walking around with their pants in flames.
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
