Betty Buyer - December 2009

Plan Your Call, Sammy! 

Want to sell me your product?
Then do these 3 things before you come into my office!

Advice to Sammy Seller, from BETTY BUYER

Listen, Sammy, if you really want me to buy your products and put them on my shelves, why don’t you do a better job preparing for our magical little 15-minute trysts?

You think I’m sitting here tweeting and doing my nails all day? And that I’m just thrilled to see you traipse in here with your dog, your pony, and your Power Points about “spectacular incremental sales increases” from “one of the most innovative new products in the history of the industry?”

The answer to that would be “No!” Do you realize that I sit here and have blind dates with vendors, brokers, distributors and even researchers who bring me about 10,000 new/great/different/better-for-you products every year? I’ve got to plan, schedule and process paperwork tied to all this, then make decisions about it all. So if you think I lie awake at night wondering whether your new item should get four facings — or perhaps five — you’re seriously delusional.

Believe it or not, Sammy, I want a successful sales call. I want to say yes. (But not, as in your dreams, “Yes, yes, oh, oooh, yes, yes!”) I want to bring my customers new products and programs that actually make a difference for them by saving time, money, hassle, or whatever. Here are three things you can do to make it happen more often.

1. I need to know why your product will be wanted by my customers. You should be able to tell me this when we meet. You know your products better than anyone, so what is it that will make the customer want your item? Being unlike anything else on the shelf is not enough. Different doesn’t equal desirable and desire is what moves the customer.

2. I need to know how you are going to educate the customer about your product and get them to try it in my store. Will you use price to drive trial or will you plan product demos? Will you have POP materials, will you use a web site or will you twitter everyone in my market? What is your plan to ensure your product will survive in this competitive environment? I don’t have these answers for your product, you do. Or you should.

3. You need to know my customers. I do. You need to know what it is about my customers that will make your product desirable. The fact that you sell well somewhere else does not mean the same will happen in my store with my customers. Show me.

I realize I have a big piece of the puzzle too. I cannot be a moving target for you. I have to tell you what my company’s objectives are, what we use as internal measures, how we benchmark success, and how we see ourselves positioned in our market. If I don’t provide this to you, then I deserve to get 10,000 plus items every year with few items making any sense at all.

Sammy, you have to be able to articulate these things to me. Doing these three things will show me how easy it is to say yes. And isn’t ‘yes’ what we all want to hear?

Betty Buyer, an old friend of Rhonda Retailer and one of several retailers working with us on this column, will hold forth here regularly on ways buyers and sellers can work together more effectively.

Is Betty Right? We want to hear your opinion.