DealCraft Toolkit: Behaving Like an Angry Pizzeria Owner Does Not Guarantee Good Deals!
One of my clients asked me to work with one of their salespeople. He had a reputation for making good deals, but customer satisfaction was in the toilet. With a new competitor in the market, sales leaders were concerned about losing customers. So, one morning I joined him for a couple of meetings. What I saw shocked me. Even though these were strategic, long-term customers, he was completely dismissive of their concerns and issues. When I asked where he learned to do this, he told me early in his career he called on a pizzeria. He said his behavior was exactly how he saw the old pizzeria owner behave and it worked for him. Whether it was appropriate or not for the pizzeria owner, his behavior was
not for these strategic customers. After we spent time assessing the most useful behavior to use with them, I’m happy to say he started to make different behavioral choices. And he didn’t lose any customers to the new competitor. How have your behavioral choices impacted your deals?
