A FAST LUNCH TO THE EXIT DOOR

This is a conversation that happens thousands of time a day;

Sales Rep: So Mr. Customer, do you have time to grab a quick bite for lunch?

Customer: Sure Mr. Sales Rep where do you want to go.

Sales Rep: Isn’t there a Scooters* right down the street?

Customer: Sure is, I love their wings (wink wink)

So off they go for lunch and some eye candy. Two hours later in the customers place of business the following conversation takes place;

Customers Boss: Did I see you and Sales Rep going out to lunch today? He’s a great guy isn’t he?

Customer: Yes he is, after we got all the orders taken care of he suggested we go to SCOOTERS* to grab a bite.

Customers Boss: Scooters* huh? I didn’t think Sales Rep was THAT kind of person.

Here is a time when doing something that was not only nice but the right thing to do, taking the customer out to lunch, comes back around to possibly hurt you.

As reps we always do our best to portray as good an image as we can. Sure, we cut up and tell jokes, but we try to never offend anyone inside our customers businesses. Then, without even knowing it, our image is dragged through the mud because of a poor decision on where to go to lunch!

The problem we need to be careful of isn’t knowing our customer. Most of us do that fairly well (I Hope!). The problem is we have no control over what the customer says and who the customer tells about lunch. In the case above, the boss obviously has opinions about people who eat at Scooters*. Tens of thousands of people eat there everyday. I eat there occasionally just like most of you do, but it isn’t what we think that counts, it isn’t what the tens of thousands of others think that counts, it is what the one person who can stop you from selling in a business thinks that counts.

We all make decisions that reflect who we are and how we do business. We all need to be careful of the decisions we make AROUND the true business decisions. In this case where we are going for lunch. It is a shame when the peripheral things we do and say kill opportunities we have worked weeks, months and sometimes years to build.

Save Scooters* for the weekends with your friends and take customers to places where your image and theirs are safe.

* Any establishment having a name similar to that in this story is strictly coincidental and no particular establishment was meant to be indicated

Lorin

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