By John Waldorf
I had taken on responsibilities for a new sales territory. I did not have the opportunity to meet this gentleman before we traveled together. The week before we were to travel together a customer informed us that a competitor had quoted substantially below us.
On the day we were to meet with our customer, my sales rep became very nervous. He asked me to review what approach I was going to take. I told him I am not going to badmouth the competitor, I am going to talk about the features and benefits of our product. About one hour later he again asked me to review my approach. My response was “no’, we’ve talked about it we’re set to go.
During the sales call the customer told us they had done some research on their own and determined in fact our product was superior. The business will remain with us!
When we returned to the car I asked Dave “you were quite nervous prior to this sales call were you not”? His reply was “yes John I was”. I told him “since I put Christ in charge of my life those instances have gone away”. It doesn’t mean I’m not concerned, however it does mean I am calm and ready to respond to the situation. Dave thanked me for giving him something to think about.