Mistakes
How many people do you know that are perfect or never make a mistake? The answer, of course, is no one. We all make mistakes and no matter how good we are in our chosen field this much is true, mistakes are going to happen. What separates the average salesperson from the professional salesperson is how they react to those mistakes. I would like to share a story from the food service industry but the point will be very applicable to any field of sales.
I went out to dinner with my family the other night and had the following experience. We sat down ordered our drinks and they came back to our table without any problem. We ordered an appetizer and once again, it came out in a reasonable amount of time. Then we ordered our main course and proceeded to wait for about thirty minutes, at which point, our waitress comes and tells us that there was some kind of computer glitch and the cooks never got our order. She then tells us that she will put the order back in and mark it “on the fly” which I guess means this order has first priority. Needless to say, we are not too happy at this point but we decide to wait it out. T he meal did come out quickly and was very good. The restaurant handled this situation very well. We had a manager come over and apologize and our waitress apologized more than once. We also received one meal and the appetizer free. We will go back to that restaurant again because of the way the situation was handled. A mistake was made but it was handled and we left as satisfied customers.
There is no sales field that is immune from the same type of mistakes that happened in the example above. The important part is not the mistake but what is done in response to that mistake. Do you just try to talk your way out of it and hide behind policies or do you do everything in your power to make sure your customer, in the end, is satisfied? The professional salesperson will take the example above to heart and make things right for their customer. A mistake can lead to lost customers but a corrected mistake can lead to repeat customers.
FINAO - Brad Huisken - President, IAS Training
