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...