Selling’s Best Visual Aid

Part 1 of 3

This Sunday, March 5, the city of Orlando, Florida will engage in a collective roar as they open the much-anticipated Orlando City Soccer Club’s Stadium. It’s a sellout, and more than 25,000 memories will be created.

I was privileged to receive a private hard-hat tour of the Stadium five weeks ago – and though I have walked hundreds of stadiums and arenas before – I was struck again with the awesome feeling that only an empty sports venue stirs up.

During my tour I observed a handful of prospective suite holders being shown one of only two remaining suites, and smiled. A stadium or arena (I concluded for the hundredth time in my career) is the best visual aid a sports salesperson could ever ask for.

In sports, next to having a player accompany you on a sales call, nothing surpasses entertaining a prospect or client inside your venue – before, during or after a game. Electricity emanates then lingers long after the final buzzer sounds and the crowds depart. Why host a customer in a common office when you could do so on your famous home court?

Salespeople, no matter what they sell, often claim they’re much better face-to-face, actually looking the buyer in the eye. So, they resort to the conventional approach and make an appointment to go see the prospect in their office. Later, they often return (late, because the prospect was delayed or traffic was crawling), feeling the client had the upper hand because the meeting took place on their home turf.

Salespeople – in any industry – simply must flip the situation around whenever and if ever possible. While time and distance certainly play a part in a prospect’s ability to come to your office or facility, bringing them to you should become a priority for any outside sales campaign.

Recently I was invited to lunch at Adobe’s third largest complex in the United States – a sprawling campus of 38 acres in Lehi, Utah. As interesting as our mealtime conversation was, the impressive nature of their facilities (the “hangar”) will remain with me forever. Whenever I discuss my Adobe relationship with third parties, those conversations invariably include an account of the culture and environment I experienced at their location.

Whether your workplace, as in the case of our recent training client Rish Equipment Company, is a West Virginia mine or a small executive office suite in Maryland, what can you do to make a visit to your “home field” a real advantage? How can you make it memorable? Paul Phillips, owner of PAC/West Communications, a leading public affairs firm in Wilsonville, Oregon, provides an indelible experience for his clients by displaying a fully mounted leopard beside his desk. If nothing else, it’s a conversation-starter!

Why sit in a prospect’s strange and busy office when you could leverage the cool factor your stadium, arena, restaurant, skyscraper, auto dealership or store could provide? If it’s not already an irresistible place to visit, make it so.

For example, years ago I consulted an NBA team in transforming their sales office into a simulated in-game experience. Season ticket holders and prospects loved it! They felt welcomed, fully engaged, and definitely more enthusiastic about being sold.

You may not be able to pipe in game sounds or offer fresh popcorn in your lobby, but stay tuned as I’ll be sharing ways to make an invitation to your office one that customers will be tweeting about as soon as they step on the elevator.

And good luck this weekend at your beautiful new Stadium, Orlando City. The Pride will be roaring!

Part 2: "Be Our Guest, Be Our Guest"

Part 3: "Your Home Court Advantage"

Rob Cornilles is the Founder & CEO of Game Face, Inc., the original “sales coach for sports.” Over two decades, Game Face’s sales training influence has grown with hundreds of corporations and sports franchises worldwide. For more information, contact him at [email protected].