A Week of Sitting Through Sales Talks

A self explanatory heading to the blog.

This week i had a chance to sit through two sales discussion from two companies . The first one a big corporation which has made its mark already and another trying to get off its ground.

The discussion in both the meetings were dramatically different, even the tone of the discussion was very different. The one with the big company was focussed more on which product of theirs we could choose , how could they send in army of their people to do some consulting work for us and how their expertise in their field is helping companies in various lines of business and all standard sales pitch.

As i sat there completely flummoxed and thought to myself why these sales guys aren't asking the question about what is that my organization want from them? Rather they were firing off statements on what their company could do and how their expertise was top quality etc . We already knew their offering , it was daft from them to keep reiterating their product offering.

On the other hand , on the very same evening i met the sales executive from the second company which was getting its feet off the ground, it was clear from the outset that , they wanted to help us.

The first question the sales executive asked me was , 'so what is that you do currently and what is that you want to change in which our product can assist?'.

I was genuinely surprised and the conversation became interesting from that point onwards . The sales executive was open and honest about the shortcomings of their product , which impressed me a lot and also couple of my colleagues.

After more than an hour of absolute grilling , the sales executive from the second company made a lasting impression on all of us in the room.

He had been truthful, open and honest about the product . I came away very impressed and also with a good lesson.

Its always better to be open and honest .

The winning factor was this sales executive was very prompt in responding to my questions and more pro-active in directing me to his colleagues when he couldn't answer technical questions.

Turning to the larger company , my questions with them are still outstanding .

The difference was definitely not due to the individual person but more reflective of the culture of the organization.

The two meetings and the activities relating to these have made me think is being big and successful such a bad thing or is this a one-off occurrence?

These days sales executives from big companies actually reflect to me the wider life blood of their organization , do big companies care for its clients or potential clients?

I have seen numerous cases when big companies scoff at its clients. This isn't the right attitude. By no means i am saying that big companies shouldn't care for themselves and their bottom line but i am trying to say that these companies should always put clients at the heart of everything that they do.

All i understood from this weeks incident was that statement only hangs as a phrase in much of larger corporations and there seem to be no concrete example of the same in action.

Maybe i am concluding this subject way to fast but i am going by own personal experiences and am convinced that big companies need to start thinking along the lines of how they put customers at their fore front rather than always thinking about how they can profit from each trade or sales pitch.

If clients are put at the forefront , the bottom line is taken care of automatically.