A Rant with a Message When I was growing up in rural Illinois, the local TV station always started off the 10:00 News with this public service message:   Not to bore you with the sob story of my pre-internet childhood, but we only had two TV stations and my parental units always seemed to watch the station featuring this message.  Sadly, at the time, if not present and accounted for at the appointed hour, I had to provide a report.  My parents were that way, and at the time, I found the little reminder to be profoundly annoying. Now on with my rant The common wisdom, Urban Legend if you will, among salespeople is this:  Friday Afternoon is not a good time for making sales calls.  Like many legends, there may be just a bit of truth buried deep in the story.  Some, let me repeat, a small number of customers prefer not to be approached on Friday afternoon; especially if the meeting is a drop by without a preset appointment.   ...

Let’s start with a premise: Your customers are busy, very busy. Most will soon tire of even the most conscientious salesperson who stops by to talk about the weather, how they are doing and other idle chit chat. Earlier we talked about customer-focused first-time sales calls which provided you with background on the customer. These will open the door to future calls, but even these soon become tiring if the salesperson lacks the proper product and application knowledge. While I generally don’t feel as though the selling methods expounded by the late Zig Ziglar apply directly to our work, one quote from Zig continues to ring in my mind. This may not be an exact quote – as I am going from memory, but here goes: “Enthusiasm for the products and services comes from product knowledge and talking with satisfied customers. How can we develop enthusiasm for something about which we have little or no knowledge?” To be a professional, you simply must learn about the products you offe...