Love Is Patient

WARNING: THIS YOUTUBE CLIP HAS MATERIAL THAT SOME MAY FIND OFFENSIVE. It is posted to serve as a real example of what goes on in some sales organizations.

The Freibergs continue in chapter 10 of their best selling book, “Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success”. “Love is patient. The degree of patience we exercise with others reveals a lot about how much we care about them. It’s easy to take people for granted at work, and irritation and impatience with people-over projects and work routines—can often send a signal that we don’t value them.”

The “YouTube” clip at the top of this post may represent a vulgar extreme of salesperson impatience. But I have heard about and even witnessed a few examples that don’t miss this by far. People have a decision making style that is unique to them. Some are fast and some are slow. Some need to think about things. Organizations, because they are made up of people follow this pattern as well. I have sold into many organizations who are intrinsically slow in decision making because their leadership is intrinsically methodical. They measure twice and cut once.

Some sales trainers would tell you to push potential clients through the decision making process as fast as possible. What often happens is the sales person moves from being professional to being an outright jerk. This is common for some reason in the car sales culture. More than once I have walked on to a car lot and been approached with a salesman using a “close” in the first few seconds of our conversation. Usually it sounds something like this, “If I give you a good deal, are you ready to buy today?” My response is to turn around and walk away.

I do believe it can be completely appropriate to give an incentive for a quicker or timely decision. But be very careful with what traditional sales trainers often call, “The Today Only Close”. This can feel very manipulative to the customer. I have no problem when I shop at Target with the fact I can get a better price on some products this weekend than I can on Monday. That’s called a sale. I even wait for things to go on sale. Whatever your business is, you may do something similar. Just be careful to keep the customer feeling very good about the process.

Get in sync with your customers decision making pace. Be patient. I like basketball coaching great Phil Jackson’s thought here when he says, “There’s no percentage in trying to push the river or speed up the harvest. The farmer who’s so eager to help crops grow that he slips out at night and tugs on the shoots inevitably ends up going hungry.”

When I have a customer that needs to think about it, I try to serve them by staying in touch and feeding them additional information. I usually first find out what their concerns are. Needing to think may mean the have a naturally extended decision making process, but it also usually mean they have some unresolved concerns. I may be able to resolve the concerns on the spot. If not, the additional information I feed them over the next few days or weeks will usually be an attempt to address those concerns.

Remember...Love is Patient.