10 steps to become the "Three Wise Monkey Sales Person of the Month - no see, no hear, just speak"

Some while ago I planned a certification and was looking for a new company that would do the test. I got reminded of this slightly confusing experience by Gabriella Davis' blog entry about Dell and their "personal account managers". The test provider, where I did my certification, tried selling me IT trainings for my company that had nothing to do with our business at all, and accomplished the balancing act of being over-eager and not-caring at the same time.

From this experience, I created the success list for becoming the "Three Wise Monkey Sales Person of the Month - no see, no hear, just speak". If you have a product, that you do NOT want to sell and have too many customers already, just follow this easy step-by-step list:

1) If your customer calls you and is interested in one of your products, just call him again few minutes later and inform him (then) about further offers. Invite him to talk about these offers, when your customer comes to your site; when you then actually meet your customer in person, ask "And? What did you want to talk about?". Enjoy the expression on your customer's face.

2) In this personal sales conversation, inform your customer, that you are new in your company and that you actually do not really know how things work. This has the best effect if your colleague already did this before.

3) Tell your customer, what profession you were in before. The less it has to do with the current situation, the better.

4) Do not listen to your customer. Do not! If your contact wants to explain his situation and his business needs to you, interrupt him with the words "Ya, I've been on your web site". Tell him about his business needs yourself.

5) Make sure, that in the beginning you only ask questions about how satisfied your customer has been so far, even though this is the first time your customer buys. Write everything your customer sais down. After I while, look up from your paper and mention: "I'm writing this down".

6) If your customer, despite the short time you know each other, already mentions suggestions for improvement, stay polite. Explain to your customer, why you cannot change anything and why it wouldn't help anyway. Make sure your customer understands that.

7) Insist on the question, what other service providers your customer has worked with before. If he avoids the question, ask again. The fourth same question might bring a different answer then the three before.

8) When you finally listen to your customer's needs, answer on everything he sais with: "we could do that", even though that might not be your core business. Repeat this sentence as often as possible.

9) Did I mention it? Do not listen! If your customer tries talking about one thing in your catalogue, browse to a total different page and talk about it thus eager that it's nearly impossible to get back to the first subject.

10) Finalizing the sales conversation: inform your customer, that you will forward everything you talked about to a colleague. Your work is done here - after all, your customer holds your catalogue in his hands...