Cold Caller's Comeback Leaves Client Chilly

I respect all sales people who pound the pavement making cold calls, particularly when the weather is lousy. It must be difficult to approach total strangers and ask them to do business with you. If you're lucky, you represent a company with a good reputation and a few folk might be willing to chat with you. Otherwise, you will receive a variety of responses ranging from simple "no" to rude dismissals.

Although there is a "no soliciting" sign on our door, sales people stop in our office several times a week to sell me everything from office supplies to electricity. I try to be polite when I refuse them because I know their job is a tough one.

There is a company in our area that must use our town as a training ground. Every few days, people stop in to give me their pitch. Each time, I explain that we get those items from a client and as long as that relationship is in place, we will not be doing business with any other company. I've tried, without success, to get them to take us off their list. On Thursday, a man and a woman came in. I told them the same thing: we will not do business with you at this time and please remove us from your list.

The response from the woman as she turned to leave was, "Then I'll get out of your hair."

That woman communicated a lot. In that one statement I learned that she didn't want to be making cold calls, she couldn't care less whether or not I gave her any business, and she had not been properly trained. If I were to make a guess I'd say that being a sales rep was not working out the way she had envisioned it. I hope her manager spends some time with her and helps her improve her approach. Otherwise I think she will continue sending potential customer the wrong message.

Do you think I'm right about my interpretation of her feelings?  Would you do business with her?

Amy screwed up. She unintentionally offended a client and still feels terrible about it. Yes, she's human and that day, definitely not up to par. The client complained to the boss and the boss corrected her.  If Amy could have dug a hole and crawled in, she would have. She did her best to apologize and wishes there was more she could do to set things right. 

I sympathized. This has happened to everyone at some point in their lives, me included. I told her that but I'm not sure it helped.

So what happened?  Amy doesn't know.  There must have been some kind of short circuit between her brain and her mouth.

Since it is not in Amy's nature to be short or sharp with anyone, something must have interfered with her edit switch. Together we dissected the event and discovered that she answered the client's question, fully expecting a joking rejoinder. Somehow her attempt at humor didn't come across.  It is impossible to know now if her tone or her expression belied her words.  Her boss let it pass.  Amy isn't sure the customer has or ever will.  She will carry this with her for a long time, mentally flogging herself every time that customer name appears in front of her.

Some days we are masters of our words; on others, we can barely put a noun and verb together.  We see it in social media all the time. Tweets are either 140 characters of genius or the tweeter is back-pedaling because what she wrote made no sense.

Communication is an exchange. It is spoken, written, performed, or displayed. No matter how earnestly we try, sometimes we will not be successful in conveying our thoughts or intentions. At that point, we have to be willing to apologize and try again. A great deal may ride on our ability to have others understand us.  Everything from world peace to inner peace.