When I began my career as a sales rep in the “textbook publishing” business, Beth Lewis, the talented woman who trained me, insisted that I meet with 20 professors every day.
“The more professors you talk to, the more books you’ll sell,” she told me. Seemed reasonable.
Unfortunately, my misguided attempt to comply with her advice almost got me fired.
Her edict was clear enough, and I vowed to do my best to talk to 20 professors a day. I had a good memory, so I was able to memorize a lot of product information. And since I had two weeks before the Fall semester kicked off at most schools in Iowa and Nebraska, I took advantage of the time and practiced “my pitch” on dozens of friends and relatives.
I practiced on my mother and my brother. I practiced on my wife and three of her siblings. I practiced on neighbors. None of these people were actually college professors, but they all agreed that I sounded great. (Note to self: a blog on sampling bias is in order.)
How good was I? Well, one of them almost pre-ordered a copy of the new Principles of Marketing book I was promoting, but at the end of the day I just couldn’t charge my dear mom the $46.00 list price. (Yes, you read that right, $46.00.)
So, with all that product knowledge in my head and my sales pitches nailed down, I was ready to tackle my largest account, The University of Iowa, on the Fall day that classes began. From there I planned on visiting most of the colleges in my territory, telling great stories about how the products in my book bag would change their lives and the lives of their students. I was 23. I was pumped. And I was naive. (Wait for it.)
At first, seeing 20 people a day wasn’t easy … especially in the era before cell phones. Some days I only managed to get in front of 13 or 14 people, and since I had to report this information to the company, I was often feeling like I was letting Beth and the company down. So I worked harder.
Within a few weeks I was averaging 20 professors a day. To be fair, some days I only saw 15. But on other days my count was in the low 20s. On one day in particular I saw 25 professors.
And then Beth Lewis paid me a follow-up visit. She wanted to work with me for a couple of days, see how I was doing, give me a few tips. I was eager to show her how good I was, let her hear my product stories, witness my carefully practiced delivery. I was sure she’d be impressed and proud.
Beth was a great listener, and she listened to me all day. Amazed as I was at her listening skills, I had the distinct feeling that she was becoming fatigued as the day went on. (I assumed she was in awe of the pace and energy I was sustaining.) Thoughts of big bonuses, sales awards, and promotions were entering my mind as the day drew to a close.
Then, reality hit me. And fortunately, for the sake of my future in this industry, Beth gave me some helpful advice that altered the course of my career.
“I listened to you carefully today,” she said.
I nodded with pride, expecting the appropriate kudos for such an impressive performance.
“You didn’t stop talking all day,” she said. “You deluged every professor you met with key features and infinite details about your products.”
“Yes,” I said, a knot forming in my stomach, not really sure if I should say "thank you very much" or "gee I'm sorry."
She then went on to teach me the importance of asking good questions. Though it seemed a bit misdirected to hold back valuable information and consume precious minutes by letting the professor opine … and some of them could really opine … I was learning something very important about collecting the customer backstory, an integral component of what we today call the customer experience.
The Golden Rule of the Backstory
Let the customer drive the conversation with their backstory, but you control the road the conversation travels down.
You see, questions are like toll booths on a turnpike. Place them into the conversation strategically, and then let the customer drive as fast or slow as they like, in whatever lane they choose.
Once I learned this basic concept, I was able to work on perfecting those toll booth questions. Eventually, I got to the point that I could ask just five or six quick questions and collect most of the information I needed to close the sale. Really.
That doesn’t mean that I closed every sale, but remember the Principles of Marketing textbook I almost sold to my mother? Well, I officially sold 8,200 copies of that textbook in my territory that year. Really.
The secret? Toll booth questions. You see those toll booth questions allowed me to collect the right kind of information at the right time in a conversation. Product knowledge was still important, but Beth taught me that my job was to tell a good story based upon the things that each professor had told me. In other words, product features didn’t matter unless you could connect a particular benefit or advantage to some part of the customer experience.
“Your story should convey the product benefits that are most important to whomever you’re telling your story to,” said Beth.
It all seems fairly basic now, but I’m convinced Beth’s advice should be taught to a new generation of product developers who now work at “learning science companies” creating amazing blends of content and technology. A great product story will emerge from a carefully harvested customer backstory. Really.
This lesson has stayed with me over the years, as I moved into product development roles with Times Mirror, Prentice Hall (Pearson), and McGraw-Hill. In fact, I’m convinced that toll booth questions are as valuable when you are testing a new product concept and doing product reviews as they are when you are promoting and selling the finished product.
In PART TWO, I’ll go into more detail on how to create and deploy toll booth questions throughout the product life cycle, but for now, let me summarize what we’ve discussed here in PART ONE.
- Selling doesn’t involve telling until you’re done listening to the customer's backstory.
- Let your customers feel like they’re in control and driving the conversation while you control the road's toll booths.
- Five toll booth questions are enough to close the sale, or validate the concept, or move your product along the product development lifecycle.
While this may not be easy, it’s a strategy that almost anyone can master. Really.
Until next time …
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David Brake is the founder of The Grandview Group and Pubcentral. His companies help organizations and individuals create content that connects with customers. He is the coauthor of The Social Media Bible 1/e (Wiley, 2009) that featured a future-thinking chapter titled Everyone's a Publisher, something he truly believes.
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