Humour in Sales!

Babies start laughing in 6 weeks after they are born. In 6 months, they look at you and laugh. As they grow up, children laugh 200 – 300 times a day.

As adults, we laugh about 15 – 20 times a day [Do we?] or we have stopped laughing completely. That is the reason for all the stress and related disorders.

We should learn to look at our daily life with humour.

I was in a sales situation. Once, I had an appointment to meet the Head of Networking & System Support [NSS] team of an MNC IT Services company in Chennai. He was responsible for all the software purchases.

During this meeting, I was supposed to talk to him about a Data Modelling Software called ERwin [from a company called LogicWorks] and another product called BPwin.

I always learnt technically about the product, I mean, as much technical knowledge as required to sell.

So, there I was, waiting in the reception and I was called in.

I was expecting to meet only the head where as I was in for a shock when he had two people with him. And as if that wasn’t sufficient, he called four others into his cabin. They all literally surrounded me. I started sweating, first a little, then profusely.

The fun starts here now. I explained the product to the best of my abilities. These software developers, I am not sure if they were very angry that day, started asking several questions that were very technical and something that only Logic Works Product Manager can answer.

In Sales, none can make us feel awkward. 🙂

And if they try, we always have our weapon, a standard statement: “Sure, that seems to be a very good question, I will check with my tech team and get back to you”.

They finally released me from imprisonment.

Phew!

What a call, man!

Well, the story goes like this: I managed to answer all their questions in due course and sold them a couple of licenses of both the products.

But, for a long time, I used to think of this sales situation and laugh.

I should thank those software developers for asking me those tough questions. They had so much confidence in my technical prowess that even I didn’t have.

Did I make you laugh?

Think of such things in your day to day life. You will find plenty of things to laugh about. Share those stories with friends and colleagues.

Keep Laughing!!

Happy Selling!!