Last night I went to the home show at the Portland Maine Expo. I’ve liked this show in the past because of the nice mixture of vendors/displays for larger projects like adding a sunroom, and a healthy blend of smaller vendors for things like special ratchet action snips and I even don’t mind the occasional ShamWow type booth. This year I was a little disappointed that there seemed to be far fewer of the small booths.
My bigger surprise though was that there wasn’t more attention to the few potential customers circling the booths. Now, I’ve run into this before – a middle aged woman without a husband in tow, it sometimes seems I must have grabbed my invisibility cloak by mistake. (I once had a phone conversation with a siding salesman. I had called because I was thinking of having my house done and needed a quote – I was pretty much told right out that he wouldn’t bother coming unless my husband was home to make the decision. I chose not to tell him that I wasn’t married and was capable of making a decision…since I had already made one based on his attitude.) But back to my home show experience…
I am thinking of having a couple projects done at my condo – maybe a window replacement, maybe a countertop replacement. I haven’t yet committed to the idea so was not aggressively flagging down help. In one case the guy did come over to speak to me (window guy) and I mentioned Condo. He seemed to immediately lose interest and told me I should talk to the condo association first. I understand that that is something I need to do, but we aren’t an overly structured association and I wanted to find out a general price range before going to the association. No interest, no ballpark price range. (In fact, there might even have been an opportunity for them to set themselves up as the supplier of window work at this association.)
By now I was more curious about what type of attention I might get given the low turnout and the bad economy. I had expected there would be higher attention and more in the way of special offers. So I wandered into several booths where there was more than one representative and I was the only potential customer. They continued the conversation they were having amongst themselves and no one approached, or even seemed to notice I was there.
Now here’s my insight for sales representatives. It’s true that if my mind was already made up about purchasing, I would have proactively asked you for information and help. But in this economy business is not necessarily going to come to you…you need to keep an open mind about who your next customer might be and when someone is on the fence put in some extra effort. Had someone been more proactive about approaching me and supplying information and suggestions of options, they might well have turned me into a buying customer. I’m not looking for a hard sell – which is just as much a problem as being ignored. Maybe it’s a little like driving a standard – when I was learning I used to pop the clutch all the time. Finally I learned that the sweet spot is a very small area in the middle, and you need to feel the right level of tension in that sweet spot to control the beginning of the move forward.
Just something to think about the next time you do a quick assessment / dismissal – anyone might be a potential sale if you’re willing to work for it. I think perhaps that people are now so convinced the economy is bad, that it’s not worth the effort…but that can easily become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Gloria
Potential Customer but Still Looking
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