Is Your Bro Sales Technique Damaging Your Brand?

Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays I spend an hour of my day with a great bunch of people sweating.

While sweating (and often swearing at him) I often find myself having great chats with my coach, Coach Cal, who was featured recently on my LinkedIn for his part in the team Part Timers at Husky (the triathlon I did in Feb.)

Recently, he came to me with a doozy, and I said to him, cheers for the content.

His son has a lot of energy - I mean, what 3-year-old doesn't?

So naturally, the best ways to channel a young kid with energy? Get them into activities.

Cal called a local martial arts center to get Luca into well, I am not entirely sure, one of those martial arts - not my area of expertise, and it really isn't relevant to the story.

What he got was probably the dumbest sales strategy that I have ever heard of...

Yet, no doubt the trained salesperson on the phone was just following the protocol set out for them because their small business owner boss had followed another one of those bro sales/marketing dudes who "has the answer to scaling your business quickly" just use these sales scripts and improve your sales X%

You know the ones, they have Amazon best selling books and they use really creative or funny advertising campaigns to hook you in.

They're glamorous, LOUD, opinionated, very bro, and they're doing really well selling to you about selling. (Come on, you're getting the irony, right?)

Back to the story

Cal asked this gym several times: Can you just give me an idea over the phone of what it would cost to send my kid there x days per week

"Sorry, sir, it isn't protocol to give pricing out over the phone. We encourage that you come in and have a trial, and then if your son likes it, we can chat about membership when you're here."

He proceeded to tell them he ran his own business and had done sales training and knew that this was, in fact, a script and really just wanted the price over the phone.

After a back and forth, the sales rep still refused to give Cal the price because it wasn't company protocol (aka it was off script).

This is an example of when sales scripts go horribly wrong and actually cost companies $$$.

Flexibility and understanding your customer when it comes to customer experience is your best friend... I mean Cal even told them he knew it was a script head slap

He would have signed up, he told them that, he just didn't want to waste his time going there if it was going to be out of his budget (which also, by the way would have been a waste for them.)

Now, he's not going there, he won't go there, and he will tell 7 other parents not to go there (at least) and has already told a local class of 12 people or more how dumb this whole experience was - and we all agreed it was dumb.

All because of the rigidity of a sales script.

This company (I think I should contact them, hey?) clearly has no understanding of why sales and marketing NEED TO TALK.

Because this customer experience is flat out... shit.

We all know the reason they wanted to get Cal into the gym... Because face-to-face selling is easier and more effective AND most importantly, his boy would get attached once he walked in and had a great time throwing some punches and kicks - and getting to feel like his favourite superhero for an afternoon. (Ah yes emotional selling.)

We need to stop treating our customers like they don't understand the tactics we use to get sales. If you run a business, you are in the business of getting sales, and there is NO shame in that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, and being upfront and creating an actual human experience for your customer should outweigh the protocol of following a BS bro sales script that you were told will work for your company because some dude who has an Amazon best seller (there are tricks to do that to people) told you it will.

The best sales technique is being a human and creating a brand that aligns with your sales and marketing AND most importantly, creates an experience that is what your ideal client needs. (HINT: this is unique and can't be taught from a book that gives you sales scripts.)

Can we stop glorifying the bro sales gods of the internet, please? Their techniques are grounded in tactics that harm brands and create inauthentic sales experiences often out of alignment with the brands we want to create. They're also often outdated and survive off hustle culture - hustle culture is dead.

Human is in.

As always if you want me to sense check your marketing, send me a message.

Bec

xx