First, when going into a meeting, turn off your cell phone.  That’s an easy thing and no one should have to be reminded.  Take out your pen, and put your cell phone on vibrate.

Next, if you are in a public place, put your cell phone on vibrate.  The meeting we were having was in a small coffee shop so when the person at the next table received a phone call.  It rang so loud we all jumped.

When you answer the phone, think about the people around you.  I can’t tell you how many conversations I can recount to you from the last week of paying attention that were people just talking loudly on their cell phones.  I’m tempted to start commenting – wouldn’t the person on the phone be surprised?!

Keep conversations short when you are in public.  In you are in line somewhere or at a restaurant, keep it short. It is frustrating when you are holding up the world so you can finish your conversation.  And exactly how is a company suppose to provide you customer service if you are on the phone the whole time?

Be conscious of when you check your phone during a conversation with someone else.  If you know there’s an important call coming in that you have to take, warn the person up front.  If the phone rings and it might be a school or other issue, let the person know you have to check for that reason.  Otherwise, focus on the person in front of you and let the phone go for awhile.

And just to invoke a little common sense, if it would be reasonable for another person to say, “shhhh” to you in that location, don’t take a phone call. The library, a church, a lobby of an office, a movie theater, a quiet restaurant, etc. are all places we would shush you so do it yourself!

The bottom line here is as the face of your company, your behavior speaks volumes about who you are and what your company is about.  If you are rude with your phone, regardless of your intentions, your company will be judged that way.  If you take my call and are in public, I will wonder who can hear what we’re saying and how conscience you are of confidentiality.  If you infringe on my lunch or meeting with your phone, I will assume you are insensitive and don’t care about other people.  Not the right messages, right?

I tell you that because I have had two encounters with sales people recently where they were shocked that I didn’t think their product fit my client’s needs. Of course this wasn’t followed up with clearly articulated, well thought out reasons it should be a fit. It was a fit because “everyone else uses it” or the sales rep was sure it was a fit.  Well, my clients are unique so they don’t do what “everyone” else does just to follow the pack.  And I’m really happy that the sales reps have the gift of fortune telling but I’ve never really bought it.

Okay, so enough rant. The point is, you need to ask smart questions to figure out if the client is a good fit.  And if they aren’t, be able to walk away. Or even classier, give them a different option before walking away.  I promise they will remember you and recommend you to someone that is a good fit.  But, the standard questions you learned when you started your sales career aren’t going to cut it.

You’ve heard this before, but clearly there are some people out there who haven’t. First, if someone agrees to meet, check out WHAT THEY DO. Read their website. It doesn’t take that long to get a sense of what a person finds important from their site.  That way, you can talk intelligently about their business rather than start with the, “so what do you do?”.  I’ll tell you right now, start a sales meeting with me that way and we aren’t getting anywhere. I’m busy – I put information out in the world so people can find out what I do.  Ask me something that shows you put a little time in and I’ll be right there with you.

Bring the materials and pricing you are going to give me. Don’t show me a bunch of stuff and take it away. That’s annoying! If you need to show me stuff that you can’t leave with me, give me stuff you will leave with me first.  It seems silly but if I can take notes on your materials, guess what is going in the file?

Recognize that there are situations your product doesn’t fit.  I just can’t stress this enough.  When the sales rep at Groupon said, “it sounds like this may not be a fit for this particular customer”, I was much more inclined to hear about situations where it does work.  Even with the bad press and problems Groupon has had, I was more willing to spend time on it when he realized the person we were discussing wasn’t going to work out.  But, the guy was smart enough to think I might have another use for it. And so I have a Groupon folder and information in case I find a reason to use it.  If he hadn’t said that and kept pushing, I wouldn’t have bothered keeping anything.

And let me say it another way – you don’t want EVERYONE as your client. That would be annoying.  That means you’d have the fun-easy-to-work-with-great clients as well as the  please-don’t-ever-make-me-take-their-call clients. Instead, let’s figure out what makes those great clients great and get more of those! Do you have any idea how much fun a day can be where everyone you talk to you enjoy? Truly amazing!

So know that it is okay to not fit.  Be confident that the right prospects are out there and you will find them.  Look at your current customers to be sure you understand why they are happy and get more of them.  And stop making deer-in-headlights faces at me because I told you no!

Recently, my dog brought me a baby bunny from a nest in the backyard. From his standpoint, he was doing a good thing by eliminating pests.  From my standpoint my baby is a killer!  Two perspectives that couldn’t be more different!  But, as his client, Fritz has worked hard to try to understand and do the right thing. Now, as he’s a dog, he tries to do the same thing again but the situation still applies.  He’s working harder to find rabbits rather than have the ability to understand I don’t want him to do that at all.

Good thing we’re smarter than dogs, right?  Obviously having a conversation with someone when something has gone wrong is incredibly difficult.  You know they think you’ve gotten it wrong and yet you thought you did everything right.  How can you not be emotionally involved?  So instead, you have to approach the situation understanding that in your culture you did everything right but in the client’s, something is different. You are now officially an anthropologist!

Approach the situation as you would any learning situation.  Go in understanding you have a bias and need to determine where that is different than expectation.  If you have a good relationship with the client, you can start by asking to discuss the situation and then explaining why you did what you did.  As unemotionally as possible.  From that discussion you should be able to get information back on where their perception is different or even uncover a misunderstanding!  Use lots of “I” messages – “I felt” and “I wanted” convey you aren’t judging their differences, but instead representing what happened from your perspective.

If you don’t know the client well yet, this could be the moment you get to be a true partner.  Explaining that you know this didn’t go the way either of you wanted and you would really appreciate the opportunity to discuss it says you are a professional and big enough to admit you made a mistake.  Most people aren’t going to turn away from that and frankly if they do, they are looking for a standard that isn’t reasonable. Let your competition have them as a client – you would spend too much time on them.  But if you can sit down, again go in knowing that you misunderstood something and need to determine where the breakdown occurred. Working together to figure out how things could have been handled better can get you a long way in a relationship.

How about you – ever had a Fritz moment where you knew you did it right and found out you were wrong?  How did you handle it with the client?