EVER HAD A DOOR SLAMMED ON YOUR FACE? - Benson O. Agoha

When was the last time a door got slammed on your face? What did you do? Well, if you are a Marketer, I should suppose you let out steam and then tried the next door?

Marketers are trained to handle abusive or irascible prospects. Often, this changes once the prospect confirms the `lead' or becomes a customer. But to get a `lead' you must be prepared to smile, make apologies, keep smiling and if the door does not slam soon, chip in a few words, then another few, and the third, till you collect his details. If the prospect is still listening, he is not determined to close the door and might just give in to the marketers gift-of-the-gab. That was what happened to a colleague today.

If you are like me, a marketer of home improvement products, you would often have to go into the fields on canvassing walks. You must be prepared to meet different kinds of people, in different kinds of situations in different environments. But remember that `the customer is always right'.

Tuesday July 14th was for me an eventful day. The morning session walk was, in terms of yielding a `lead', fruitless. But then, came the evening walk, we had been out nearly three hours, knocking on doors. It was not until we were doing the odd numbers side of the last street that the event occured. I had approached a door to knock when a van pulled by and inside were the home owner and two others. A brief introduction, and I secured two `leads' at once.

Experience has thought us that even though some prospects need some kind of gentle persuasion, if they dont want it, they wont want it. So whatever you are selling, one advise worth remembering is never to approach a door thinking that this must be the one `lead' I have been expecting. Customers, like everybody else, have their needs and order their priorities to suit their needs.

And oh! when it turns out to be a day for taking the blows, don't forget that it is part of job and ensure you take it your own way. Smile, swallow your pride and move one. The next door might just be the icing in your cake.