CUSTOMERS ARE FROM VENUS, SALES REPS ARE FROM MARS

How often have you felt like this? How many times have you been talking to a customer, and when the conversation is over neither you nor the customer could tell you what each other said?


Why does this happen? It happens because neither the customer nor the rep has taken the time to learn each other’s language (I am not talking English, although that may be a barrier, I am talking the catch phrases and key words of business).

As professional sales reps working for a company or carrying lines of products, we develop a special language that is unique to our world. Abbreviations, acronyms, terms that no one else says or understands become normal to us and we use them in mixed company. (Those that know and those that don’t know what they mean). At the same time our customers are using the same type phrases that are unique to their business in the same way. The result, WE DON’T UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER!

Let’s now factor in PRIDE and EGO. How many times have you been with a customer and they use one of these little phrases that you do not understand and because of pride or ego you don’t ask the customer to back up and explain it? You may have missed a very important fact by not asking and possibly missed an opportunity either now or in the future. The same pride and ego work on the customer side of the coin. They feel reluctant to ask you about something you may have said because they feel maybe they should know it.

So what is the outcome, you are speaking Martian and they are speaking Venetian and possibly a lot of very useful and sometime imperative information may be missed by you both.

How can this common problem be overcome? It is really easy, but it does require you to step out from behind your ego and come down to Earth. ASK the customer questions about things you don’t understand and set things up to make the customer feel at ease to ask you. Say to a customer, “Maybe I should already know this, but what does that mean?” and then follow up with, “If I ever use a term that you don’t understand or doesn’t make perfectly good sense to you, stop me and I will do my best to explain it.”

If we can do our best to understand and be understood, then we will be talking the universal language, SUCCESS!

Lorin