Broaching the Lessons of The Bachelor

I don’t watch The Bachelor (as far as you know), but my wife does. I'm not thrilled about it, but it’s one of those tradeoffs you make to remain self-aware, civil, and still married.  

I watch six hours of football (NFC + AFC Championship Sunday is better than the Super Bowl) and she watches sixteen episodes of airline pilot Peter Weber as he takes his search for true love to new heights.
 
If you’ve somehow missed out on this scourge of American TV, it revolves around, well, a bachelor. Thirty single (as far as you know) women vie for the bachelor’s attention and love while being deprived of sleep and served an unending supply of champagne. Each week, a few women are eliminated as the bachelor’s sampling period progresses. Winnowing the number of women to two, the guy proposes marriage to one lucky woman.  

The loser cries uncontrollably . . . and then becomes the next Bachelorette.    
     
This idiotic show has been playing a lot in my home. Turns out I couldn’t help but draw a few sales lessons from the repetitive one-liners I heard over and over and over again. 

“She’s not here for the right reasons.” 
You’re not supposed to arrive on The Bachelor looking for fame. Or money. Or to land on the cover of Us Weekly. Those are the wrong reasons.  

What are the right reasons?  

Love. And champagne. 

In sales, you need to approach a prospect for the right reasons.  

To be useful. To be helpful.  

To eliminate a need, solve a problem, or help them take advantage of an opportunity to make, find, or save money. 

It’s not about you. It’s about them.  

Approach every phone call, email, or meeting with a prospect armed with intelligent questions you cannot find out by doing a little research . . . and you’re there for the right reasons. 

“Can I steal you for a second?” 
With thirty women staggering around (three-inch heels and booze will do that) after one dude, one-on-one time is precious. Every 30 seconds someone is interrupting someone else. These women know to make an impression quickly. Lots of creative tactics are used here, but few translate into professional selling, with good reason.   

Salespeople must learn the subtle art of interrupting well. We’re told from a young age that interrupting people—let alone strangers—is rude. So what’s a sales pro to do? Deliver value first and fast.  

If you follow our R.R.I. Framework (identify a common referral, do your research, and have an insight or idea that makes, finds, or saves money), you can deliver value in the first few seconds.  

For more on this, listen to episode 90 of the Behind Your Back Podcast: Becoming an (amiable) Expert Interruptor, or email Bradley for a free R.R.I. prospecting notepad for your desk. 

“I didn’t realize it would be this hard.” 
As the 21-day “season” of The Bachelor rumbles on (it’s a speedy germination period), women oscillate rapidly between gleeful euphoria in the presence of the bachelor—and inconsolable despondency in his absence. 

This show is so far from reality no one could properly prepare themselves for it. As a sales rep, however, know that happiness equals reality minus expectations.  

Expect it will take at least eight attempts to earn the attention of your prospect. Expect emails, voicemails, and consecutive weeks of donuts to be ignored. Expect your meeting to be canceled at the last moment. Expect the comment, “We’ll give you a shot on the next one,” to be a bald-faced lie, uttered to simply get you out of his office, off his job site, or off the phone.  

Expect selling to be hard. And no, there is no hack. There is no shortcut. 

Know why? 

Because buyers are now conditioned to ignore lazy salespeople who overwhelmingly feel entitled to returned phone calls and expect it to be easy and look for hacks and shortcuts. 

You are owed nothing. Deliver value first.  

Embrace that mantra, constantly look for ways to be useful, work your tail off, and then . . . on a long enough timeline . . . good things will happen. Probably. 

“Will you accept this rose?”  
Each episode ends with this ridiculous question. Count on it.  

There’s one line in sales you can anticipate with total confidence: Your price is too high. So elemental as to not require teaching, newly minted purchasing managers instinctually utter this phrase to vending machines. And yet, it still catches sales professionals—young and old—off guard.  

Your price is too high. It’s coming. Count on it. 

Answer it directly with these three words: Compared to what? 

Put the ball back in their court. Let them detail how they’re comparing the proverbial apples to apples. What you’ll find is that they’re usually comparing apples to roses. And those are two very, very different things.   

Now . . . I return my attention back to football.  

Niners over the Chiefs. 31-28 

Thanks for reading!
BH