A sale can only be made when the seller has the attention of the prospective buyer.
Years ago Your Business Professor had been regularly calling on a hospital account making dozens of sales presentations. I had known the decision maker, a nurse, for years.
She asked me, “Do you have a 26-gauge?”
I stared at her. My small business was the only company on the market that did. And I had told her that dozens of times in dozens of sales pitches.
She had been paying little attention to me, and I couldn’t begin to tell the story as small business marketer, Sujan Patel reminds us. I was little more than a professional visitor. All of my company’s marketing efforts and budget, and my personal selling genius were dust in the whirlwind that was her Intensive Care Unit. My glossy, four-color direct mail piece did not catch any attention; she did not hear me.
I was selling the Good News of teeny-tiny catheters for intravenous therapy, but no one had ears to hear. No one was buying my copy.
Read the story here on Small Business Trends.
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