“No, thanks!”
That’s my answer when a salesperson asks me whether I want him to walk me through his sales deck. “No, thanks, I’ve already researched your company info before the meeting.”
Time’s precious. I don’t want to waste time with info that I can more efficiently get before a meeting. I invited that person because I already believe that there might be common ground and that it might be a fit.
So, when we meet, I want to dig deeper. I want to understand how this service or product would be just the right solution to my problem. I just don’t have time to figure that out myself after suffering through 27 slides of generic marketing messages. I don’t care for how large your building is and how many other departments you have.
John Caples, the famous copywriter, said it like this:
“The most frequent reason for unsuccessful advertising is advertisers who are so full of their own accomplishments that they forger to tell us why we should buy.”
Sales decks are often full of own accomplishments and the only thing they talk about is themselves. Yet, when you want to sell something, it’s not about you. We know that you want to sell. It’s about us. It’s about why we should buy. Why is this for us? We care for whether you understand our business. Whether you see our problem and feel our pain. And whether your medicine will work. We don’t want a lecture about how great you are but a conversation about why we are a great fit.
