This week I experienced the worst sales person I’ve ever experienced.  It was painful.  I am looking for a partner to enhance an existing offer.  I reached out to this sales person about a month ago.   I wanted to get more information on their products and determine if they could help us penetrate a new part of the market.   What made this sales person so terrible was he had no idea what we needed.   He never asked.

I spent 45 minutes being bombarded with stats, use cases, features, and more around a very technical product without the discussion ever being connected to why I wanted to talk to them in the first place.   At one point during the meeting a person familiar with our company came into the meeting and asked the sales person if he knew what we did and he responded he didn’t know.   Yes, I’ll say it again.  The sales person didn’t know what we did, never mind why I called in the first place.

At the end of it all he tried to close me.  It was funny to hear him say in his best canned close, “You can see our XXXX provides a series of benefits, it is out of the box and can be a great solution for you etc, etc,  so how many do you want.”  I’m only slightly exaggerating.   It was that bad.

Products need needs.   Even the best product in the world requires a need to sell it.   If a sales person doesn’t understand the need, everything is wasted. Think about it, even the most in demand products; cash, water, food, etc won’t be bought if a need doesn’t exist.  If you’re not hungry, you’re not going to a restaurant.  If your not thirsty, your not buying water.  If we are in the midst of social chaos and anarchy, cash means nothing.  There has to be a need.

To sales people and sales managers:  Start with identifying the need.  Don’t make it complicated, just ask your customer; “Why do you need this (my product)?  Once you know why, then you can start thinking about you have, until then it doesn’t matter.

Needs drive sales!  No need, no sale period.