Question

Scenario:

I was on my way to a meeting with a new client, one of my first. When I arrived, I was kept waiting for 5 minutes while a series of staff entered and exited the client’s office. I was then ushered into an office that had various citations on the walls for quality control and many reports were stacked on the client’ desk. She had a very serious demeanor and when I looked around the office for clues as to who this client was, I could not find any personal mementos so I dove into my usual sales pitch regarding our cell phone products. She apologized for starting the meeting late and keeping me waiting. I told her that it was no problem and decided to skip the small talk and get down to describing our products. After listening about 5 minutes and leaning back in her chair, she asked me,

“How would your cell phone products help us to relate to our customers since the majority are senior citizens?”

When I responded, I was not that specific and instead said that our brochure had much of the technical information the client might want. But I quickly added that I would be glad to give her a personalized tour of our plant and that we were always amenable to adapting to the client’s needs. In fact, we had a booth reserved for the upcoming Technology Expo where a select list of guests would be privy to upcoming innovations we were pioneering and we would enjoy entertaining her there as a prospective future client. After all I said leaning forward and giving her my undivided attention, I knew she would want to be kept up to date regarding new developments.

She said she appreciated my suggestion and asked would I add her to the list of guests. Then she expressed a need to attend a department meeting and asked if she might show me out.

I realized that was my cue to depart and I rose quickly in response.

Checklist:

• Based on the scenario provided, describe the social style of the buyer and the seller. Explain your reasoning.
• What kind of sales presentation did the sales person make?
• What could the salesperson have done differently to improve this sales call with the potential client without making the client angry, based on your identified client social style?
• Provide the pertinent data necessary to answer the client’s question.
• Analyze how this data will be useful for the client in relating to their customers.
• Explain the type of communications between the seller and client and present successes and failures of this meeting.

Answer 1

1. The buyer showcased expressive social style. Expressive social style refers that these customers express enthusiasm, impulsiveness and innovative. They are assertive in nature as well. Such type of customers is confident and has charismatic leadership style. The seller showcased driver social style. Driver social style refers that the seller is action/task-oriented and is focused on finishing his task soon.

2. The seller exhibits canned presentation wherein the presentation is written down and the seller just reads them with less participation from the buyer. It is kind of high-pressure selling hence the buyer might defer making purchase decisions.

3. Firstly, the seller should have built a good relationship with the customer. Secondly, the seller should have understood the problem/requirements of the buyer by probing the buyer. Both these factors were not present in the seller’s presentation. The seller should not have been pushy instead the seller need to adapt a problem solving social style.

4. The pertinent data necessary to answer the client’s question are the technical specifications as to how the cell phone products would help the client to relate to their customers and how the senior citizens would be able to handle such mobile phones.

5. These technical specifications would help the client to relate to their customers on value add of the product. The client is looking forward for building customer relationships and any applications in the mobile phones would be beneficial for the customers.

6. The type of communication between the seller and the buyer is one way communication as there was no probing, problem identification and solutions to the problem. The success factor is that the client is giving a cue to build good business relationship to the buyer but the failure factor is that the seller does not build a rapport and is very pushy about the product.

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