No Thanks
“I have a client that wants to hire you,” the consultant said. I’d never met him before, but was intrigued. It was a big company. Probably 100 or more sales reps.
He had already talked to the company leadership team about me and had sent them links to my videos and podcast.
“They’re excited about you and what you do, and wanted me to call to see how they can engage your services.”
“Well thank you… and I’m happy to talk about that, but you’re on page 8 and I’m back on page 2. Why in the world would they want to engage my services?” I asked sincerely.
He went on to explain that this company had never had a sales process and the sales guys were all old school. They weren’t doing badly, but the leadership team felt like they should be doing more. After seeing my videos and listening to a couple of episodes of my podcast, they thought I would be just what they needed to shake things up.
I told him I was flattered, but probably needed to talk to the company leadership directly so I could really dig into what was going on and what needs to be fixed before we decided to work together. I didn't want to waste their time.
He told me he could arrange that conversation, but wanted to clear a couple of things up first.
“Ok, shoot,” I said.
“#1 Walker, this company has a lot of employees in the midwest. Your salty language will be offensive to them, so you’d have to tone that down…”
"Mmmm, o.k… I can probably do that. That’ll cost extra though,” I joked ”What’s #2?”
“Well, you talk a lot about not being the right fit for everyone. That isn’t gonna work at this company. We’d need to leave that part out,” he said.
“Ok, hmmmm. That might be a problem. That’s one of my core beliefs. Tell me more about that,” I said.
“Well, they don’t think their prospects will respond very well to that. I mean, I know that tactic, but we’d just need to leave that out of training. That’s just not the message they want the sales folks to give their prospects…”
He continued, “ We want them to go in and sell the value. You know, tell them all the reasons they SHOULD do business with us.”
I asked him to share a couple of the reasons those prospects should do business with the company.
"Well, you know. We’re just better! Our service is awesome. We have better people. Plus, we have access to the best products on the market,” he said excitedly.
“Ok, that makes sense. Tell me something though… How many of your competitors would say they suck, have terrible service, and only hire crappy people?"
He laughed and said, “None of them say that. Of course not. But we are better! And since we’re actually better, there is no good reason for us to tell people we may not be the right fit. We want to service all the customers in our area.”
“Even the ones who don’t pay their bills?” I asked.
“Well of course not,” he said.
“How about the ones that are rude, demanding, and only want to buy the stuff you make no money on?” I pressed.
“Well no, not those either,” he conceded.
“We just don’t like that approach. You’ll just need to leave that part out.”
“Man, I really appreciate your calling me and saying all those nice things. I needed that today. I do need to tell you something though that is gonna sound kind of strange, especially after this conversation. I don’t think I’m gonna be the right fit. I’d love to help, but I think you’d be better off hiring a trainer to do it their way. It’d probably be a lot cheaper, and maybe that person wouldn’t be so nervous about not using cuss words…”
It’s ok not to be the right fit for every prospect that comes your way. Even if it’s a big opportunity. Even if they say nice things.
Telling people you aren’t the right fit for everyone and may not be the right fit for them shouldn’t be some cheap sales tactic. It needs to be something you believe with every fiber in your being.
Once you own that belief, you’ll stop chasing deals that aren’t gonna close, you’ll do a lot less free consulting, and you’ll have the time to prospect for the ones that are right in your sweet spot.
Bringing Honesty, Transparency, and Selflessness to Business.
Want to find out how I can help?
Like the blog? Subscribe to the Mailing List!