Are You Listening?

I had an interaction recently that I thought highlighted a point important enough for me to want to share it here to make sure you don't make the same mistake.

I was discussing a retainer with a copywriter. I had already decided on the terms of the retainer that I would be comfortable with and brought these terms to the copywriter to see if they were happy with them. Roughly the terms were for 50% upfront, 50% on delivery and a smaller fixed price project before with payment upfront to test the quality of the copy I would receive.

What ensued was a totally disjointed conversation. The copywriter just kept repeating that he wanted full payment upfront with no smaller projects. I tried my best to explain my situation, my logic behind it and my past experiences. Nothing I said seemed to alter what they were saying, it was like I was talking to a recording on loop.

Now this is fine, people have a right to charge what they want. With this in mind I said that its obvious we want different terms and there is no point proceeding. At this point the copywriter did a 180 flip and offered me the original terms I had asked for.

So... Did I take the offer?

The answer is No. And this is the point I am making. During the dialogue I felt that the copywriter had no interest for my opinions or what I wanted. I had the impression that they thought if they kept telling me how good they were and repeating the same thing I would eventually cave in and give them my money.

This totally alienated me and killed any rapport we had stone dead. I tried to be as honest as possible with the guy. I have been in sales a long time and when the boot is on the other foot I appreciate a prospect telling me the truth. I told him he was coming on too strong and not listening to me, which was giving me concerns. This seemed to make him more pushy if anything.

So why am I telling you this?

The first rule of sales is always to listen to your customer. I think with many aspects of internet marketing where you don't have direct feedback from customers and clients it's easy to forget this. Any time I have had a good experience buying something it is because the sales guy took some time to find out what i needed and why before making a well thought out recommendation.

So for anyone looking to sell their services online, offline or wherever, remember to listen to what your customer is asking for so you are not making it harder for people to give you their cash.