the action points, you’re going to see a dramatic increase inyour  personal  sales  effectiveness  and  sales  results  (remember  the80/20  ratio).  If  your  organization  avoids  these  traps  consistentlyacross the board, it will be on its way to being a successful sales team. 
Avoiding the 24 sales traps will enable you to:
∆ Increase your sales call effectiveness 
∆ Improve your personal selling skills
∆ Have a greater impact on your buyer’s business
∆ Improve your customer retention and customer satisfaction
∆ Be more effective in sales management
∆ Produce higher sales revenues and profits for your company
and for your clients
HOW TO USE THIS BOOKThis book identifies six basic principles followed by successful salesorganizations. These principles are based on ten years of observationof top companies, teams, and individual sales forces. Avoiding the salestraps associated with each principle will help you achieve success inthat  area.    For  each  sales  trap,  you’ll  find  explanatory  text,  actionpoints, and, at the end of each sales trap, the “sales truth,” the coun-terintuitive sales reality.  The sales truths summarize published andfield research, as well as best practices. The action points I give foreach sales trap are practical real-world guidelines based on the bestpractices  of  The  Dartmouth  Group,  the  Institute  for  Global  SalesStudies at Indiana University, and hundreds of top-notch companies.Endnotes with full citations are given at end of the book. See thenotes  section  for  more  information  on  the  research  and/orresearcher who disproves each mistaken belief, fallacy, or half-truth.
8
t h e   2 4   s a l e s   t r a p s
It includes primary sources, secondary sources, and other researchmaterial  (including  field  studies  and  face-to-face  interviews).  Thenames in the case studies and examples have been changed to pro-tect confidentiality.
I’ve designed this book to be engaging and fun (well, as engag-ing and fun as any sales book can be). Skim the table of contents,and identify the sales traps that make you go “Hmmm” or that youdisagree  with.  Turn  to  the  sales  truth  at  the  end  of  each.  Do  youagree with it? Did you get it? If you didn’t get it, or you don’t believeit, you’ll want to read the explanation. If you know the answer, butyou want to see how I came up with it, you may want to read theexplanation to see why your answer is correct. 
THE SIX PRINCIPLES OF LEADING SALES ORGANIZATIONSIn order to place the sales traps in this book in their real-world con-text, I’ve organized them around the six key principles that leadingsales organizations, teams, and top performers follow. These are thesix principles that differentiate average-performing groups and sales-people from those that are outstanding. Companies such as Xerox,IBM,  Dell  Computer,  Microsoft,  Procter  &  Gamble,  GeneralElectric,  Guidant,  Motorola,  Eli  Lilly,  INB  Bank  of  Indiana  (nowBank  One),  Duracell,  Hewlett-Packard,  Thomson  RCA,  North-western Mutual, UPS, and AT&T espouse these six principles:
1. Focus outside.
2. Get the most out of the best people.
3. Train effectively. 
4. Create value.
5. Offer feedback and opportunities for learning. 
6. Use the Internet and databases effectively. 
i n t r o d u c t i o n
9
Fundamentally,  these  six  principles  incorporate  the  24  salestruths. The trick is to identify and avoid the sales traps in order toimprove your performance—company, team, or individual. 
LEARNING SALES EFFECTIVENESS. Every week I am asked some version of thequestion, “What am I doing wrong?” Specifically, I’m asked the fol-lowing three questions every week by salespeople: 
1. What am I (is our team, our department, our organization,our company) doing wrong—so that I (we) can stop doing it?
2. What am I (is our organization) doing right—so that I (we)
can continue doing it and improve upon it? 
3. How do I (we) know what’s correct—based on the research,
not just an opinion?
The goal of The 24 Sales Traps and How to Avoid Them is to answerthese questions. If you want to see results, you need to fix your mis-takes. Start by avoiding the 24 sales traps in this book. The 24 SalesTraps  and  How  to  Avoid  Them puts  a  counterintuitive  emphasis  onwhat salespeople do wrong because in sales, especially at advanced lev-els, there are so many ways to do things right. There are many fewerways to do things wrong. 
Finally, if this book does nothing else, I hope it causes you to seeyour “sales piece” differently, to see what you’ve been doing in a newlight, so that you can be more effective. The reason to change yourbehavior  based  on  the  sales  truths  is  simple:  They  work.  In  sales,actions  based  on  fallacies,  mistaken  beliefs,  and  half-truths  don’twork. When salespeople believe and do the wrong thing, they oftenfall into one or more of these 24 sales traps.
1PRINCIPLE
adopt anoutsidefocus
SUCCESSFUL sales teams focus their energiesoutside  the  company.  The  efforts  of  sales  and  mar-keting appear seamless; they appear to be one entity,not two, when solving customer needs. 
CUSTOMERS COME FIRSTLeading sales teams focus on customers’ buying pref-erences, requirements, and needs before focusing ontheir  own  targets.  They  place  their  focus  outside oftheir  organizations  by  following  their  customers’buying trends. Less stellar sales organizations focusinside their organizations and then figure out how to
12
t h e   2 4   s a l e s   t r a p s
capture  the  customers.  For  example,  people  in  these  less  stellarorganizations place more emphasis on internal paperwork to covertheir  behinds  than  on  quickly  and  effectively  solving  customerissues. In contrast, sales leaders make their customers’ requirementsand needs their priority, then align their sales and marketing oper-ations and processes to best address those needs. 
For example, Dell Computer Corporation stays abreast with—if not ahead of—the buying requirements and patterns of its cus-tomers.  Michael  Dell  recognized  in  the  early  1980s  that  histargeted customer base didn’t see the value of a faster processor. Hechanged strategic direction from creating faster processors to mak-ing computers available over the phone. He recognized that therewere  many  customers  who  were  knowledgeable  enough  to  ordertheir  computer  solutions  directly  from  Dell  over  the  phone  (andeventually over the Net). Thus, Dell has become a giant by focus-ing on what it knows its customers want and aligning the companyto meet those requirements, rather than focusing on what it thinksits customers want. 
Sales forces should focus on solutions, not on particular products.When products that are needed to solve key customer problems donot exist and must be developed, the products should be developedby the marketing departments but in concert with the customers.
FOCUS ON SOLUTIONSSalespeople  should  focus  much  more  heavily  on  product  solutionsthan on features and advantages. An excellent example of this is IBM’ssales force, because it focuses on solutions and not on pushing prod-ucts. Likewise, Xerox’s salespeople thoroughly probe to understandthe customer’s needs today and in the future before they talk aboutnew products, new features, new pricing on old products, and so on.Such salespeople are “walking problem solvers” rather than “talkingbrochures.”
a d o p t   a n   o u t s i d e   f o c u s
13
CLOSE COORDINATION OF MARKETING AND SALES What is usually a broad chasm between the marketing departmentand the sales organization is narrow in top sales organizations. Theright hand should know what the left hand is doing, and why. Bothgroups should focus on the customer and coordinate their activitiesto provide the best solutions for the customer—even if they have tocreate solutions “on the fly” to satisfy customer needs. They shouldwork  closely  together  to  develop  solutions,  attractive  pricing,  andcustomer incentives. 
One of the key factors that reduced this gap between sales andmarketing in the 1980s was the “quality initiatives.”  The com-panies that did a good job of implementing a strong quality pro-gram tended to end up with a strong sense of cooperation betweensales  and  marketing.  This  makes  sense,  given  that  the  primarygoal of quality programs was to figure out how to focus better onthe customer. 
Xerox  Corporation,  which  in  1989  won  the  Malcolm  BaldrigeAward, presented by the U.S. Department of Commerce to compa-nies that exemplify the best in American business, for its LeadershipThrough Quality Program, is an example of a company that attaineda close working relationship between sales and marketing. As ScottBradley, a vice president at Xerox, said, “Our quality program reallyhelps us to focus on the customer requirements, both external andinternal,  in  order  to  make  certain  that  we  are  creating  customervalue. And, one of the keys for us is when our marketing and salesorganizations work closely together.”1
Xerox was by no means the only company to effectively coordi-nate sales and marketing activities. Procter & Gamble used a teamselling  approach  to  literally  force  cooperation  between  marketingand sales by including people from brand marketing and sales, andalso key management personnel, on the sales teams that work withmegachains such as Kroger, Wal-Mart, and Target. Salespeople who
14
t h e   2 4   s a l e s   t r a p s
fail to keep their focus on the customer begin to fall into sales traps.They become too aggressive, fail to relate the product to the cus-tomer’s needs, and fail to recognize potential champions.
*  *  *
a d o p t   a n   o u t s i d e   f o c u s
15
sales trap 1: You Must Be Aggressive to Succeed in Sales
Here’s the idea: You have to be aggressive to succeed in sales. This mistaken belief is widely held. But when salespeople believethey need to be aggressive, and when they are aggressive, they focuson the wrong thing: themselves. Aggressiveness reduces sales effec-tiveness because it reduces what should be your outside focus on thecustomer.
THE CULTURAL STEREOTYPE OF THE OBNOXIOUS SALESPERSONEveryone recognizes the cultural stereotype of the obnoxious sales-person.  At  the  beginning  of  each  semester  in  the  class  I  teach  onsales management and consultative marketing, I ask my students toraise their hands if they want to be salespeople. Although the thirtyto forty students who have registered for the class clearly know thatthey’re taking a career-oriented sales class, only about three in tenstudents will raise his or her hand. 
“Why  is  it  that  you  wouldn’t  want  to  pursue  a  sales  career?”  I
then ask the others.
“I don’t want to be obnoxious” is the most common answer.These students don’t want to be salespeople because they thinksalespeople have to be aggressive or—worse yet—obnoxious if theyare to succeed. Some students tone their answers down and say theydon’t feel it’s in their nature to be as “persistent” or to “bug” cus-tomers as much as they think they will have to. (Persistence is animportant ingredient in sales success, as I discuss shortly.)
The idea that you have to be aggressive in order to succeed insales  is  practically  universal.  Corporate  recruiters  report  that  inrecruiting  interviews,  students  mention  their  aggressiveness  as  apositive attribute that will lead to their success on the job. However,the recruiters aren’t necessarily looking for aggressiveness, becauseit is not tied to sales success. 
16
t h e   2 4   s a l e s   t r a p s
Is there a rational foundation for students’ aversion to salespeo-ple?  Unfortunately,  yes.  In  the  real  world,  we’ve  all  dealt  withobnoxious  salespeople.  “Pressuring  the  customer  succeeds  in  verysmall sales or with very unsophisticated buyers. But in larger salesand with sophisticated customers, the effect of pressure is negative—aggressive selling hurts your sales results,” says Neil Rackham.2
AN EXAMPLE OF AN AGGRESSIVE SALESPERSONAn encounter with an aggressive, dominant, controlling salespersonmight  look  like  the  following  scenario,  in  which  Debbie  Dale  isexploring her options for a cellular phone. The dialogue goes some-thing like this:
Phone Man (PM): May I help you?
Debbie  Dale  (DD): Well,  I’m  looking  for  an  inexpensive  cellularphone.
PM: Good. You have come to the right place. Are you lookingfor any particular features?
DD: I thought I might like to have voice mail and call waiting,if those features don’t cost me too much.
PM: No sweat. Our pricing is as competitive as anybody’s. Let’slook at several models we have here. Were you interested inactivating the phone today?
DD: I  don’t  know.  I’m  just  looking  at  different  options  rightnow.
PM: Well, no need to look any further. We have everything youneed. Will you be paying by credit card or check?
DD: Oh, I seem to have forgotten my purse. I’m sorry. Bye. 
Debbie was actually thinking, but was too polite to say, “Neither,sir; I’m giving my money to one of your competitors.” We have all
a d o p t   a n   o u t s i d e   f o c u s
17
had unproductive exchanges with obnoxious salespeople. Salespeoplewho believe they need to be aggressive in order to succeed in salesput themselves first and the customer second. Debbie’s needs were sec-ondary to the salesperson’s need to close, or perhaps, worse still, tohis company’s need for the order.
Fortunately, however, a salesperson does not have to be aggres-sive or obnoxious in order to succeed. As a matter of fact, aggres-siveness is an undesirable trait. 
AGGRESSIVE SALESPEOPLE TURN BUYERS OFFIt’s  a  shame  that  so  many  salespeople  are  aggressive.  Customersconsider salespeople to be guilty of being aggressive until proveninnocent. At the very least, customers consider them to be guilty ofnot always putting the customer’s needs ahead of their own. Aggres-siveness  doesn’t  bring  credibility  to  the  profession.  Unlikeassertiveness, hard work, or ambition, all of which help in sales asmuch  as  in  any  career,  aggressiveness  gives  the  sales  profession  abad name.
Research  shows  that  aggressive  salespeople  turn  buyers  off.Buyers  rank  dominance  as  one  of  the  least  preferred  qualities  insalespeople. Instead, they want salespeople who are confident andassertive. Dominance is viewed as self-oriented, not customer-ori-ented, and therefore reduces buyer trust.3
A BETTER EXAMPLE TO FOLLOWHere’s how a more confident and less aggressive salesperson wouldhave handled the sales interaction with Debbie:
PM: May I help you?
DD: Well, I’m looking for an inexpensive cellular phone.
PM: Good. Can you tell me what price range you were look-ing at?
18
t h e   2 4   s a l e s   t r a p s
DD: Oh, around $75.
PM: I see. Any particular features you were looking for?
DD: I thought I might like to have voice mail and call waiting,if those particular features don’t cost too much.
PM: Normally not. But the price may or may not seem like alot to you, depending on the particular needs that you have.Do you mind if I ask you a few questions in order to help iden-tify what we might be able to offer as a possible solution toyour problem?
DD: Okay. What do you want to know?
PM: Well, to begin with, how much time do you expect to beon your phone each day?
This  salesperson  put  the  customer  first,  probing  in  depth  byasking appropriate questions, and displaying genuine concern forDebbie.
Channing  (Chap)  Mitzell,  president  of  the  Windsor  FinancialGroup, Ltd., put it best when he said, “The era of the pushy, aggres-sive  financial  consultant  and  their  organizations  putting  their  ownquotas, requirements, and needs before their client’s needs is over. Inour industry, if a consultant doesn’t view value from the customer per-spective, they won’t last to view value from their own perspective.” 
ACTION POINTS➔ Being aggressive may get you the appointment, but it won’t get you thesale (and it definitely won’t get you the sustainable business relation-ship). Buyers prefer sellers whose personal style is cooperative, notaggressive. The cooperative style is characterized by the salesper-son’s receptivity, precision, friendliness, and lack of contentious-ness. Buyers don’t like salespeople who compete with them.4
a d o p t   a n   o u t s i d e   f o c u s
19
➔ Be professional. Above everything else, clients want a professionalrelationship, and they want salespeople who are trustworthy, com-posed, and task-oriented.5
➔ Display concern about the customer. The best way to show concern isto ask questions. It is difficult to be aggressive if you are askinglots of good questions. And it’s always better to show concern forthe customer than to talk about how wonderful your product orservice is.6
SALES TRUTH 1: Buyers don’t like salespeoplewho are aggressive.
20
t h e   2 4   s a l e s   t r a p s
sales trap 2: You Can Make a Complex Sale Without anAccount Champion
It’s a mistake to believe that you can make a complex sale without a“champion”  inside  the  account—a  person  who  wants  to  see  youmake the sale and is willing to help you do so. Research shows thatcomplex sales can’t be made without such help.7 Large corporationsmay  have  decentralized  corporate  structures,  no  clear  purchasingchannel, and an enormous number of people involved. This makesfinding the key players in the buyer’s decision-making process mad-deningly difficult, expensive, and sometimes nearly impossible. It’sdifficult  to  focus  outside,  on  the  customer,  under  such  circum-stances. And yet many try. 
WHAT HAPPENS WITHOUT AN ACCOUNT CHAMPIONHere’s a common scenario:
Heather,  a  three-year  sales  veteran  for  the  AtlanticStorm  &  Casualty  Company,  knew  a  lot  of  people  atGlobal Enterprises, a potentially large account. Heatherknew  decision  makers,  decision  influencers,  policyadministrators,  receptionists,  and  even  the  windowcleaner.  Heather  had  been  working  with  the  key  per-sonnel at Global for fourteen months. They had beenreceptive in meetings to her ideas regarding additionalcoverages for their offices along the Atlantic and Pacificseaboards, which were often hit by hurricanes, violentstorms,  and  earthquakes,  not  to  mention  floods  andheavy snow damage.
She  had  displayed  concern  for  her  customer.  She  hadprobed  effectively  and  thoroughly  to  understand  herclient’s needs. Her prices were competitive, and Global’s
a d o p t   a n   o u t s i d e   f o c u s
21
people liked her. But Heather couldn’t secure the busi-ness relationship. She finally convinced herself that thesenice people at Global were indecisive and fearful of mak-ing decisions. How else could they like her and need herpolicies, but still not move forward with business?
Unfortunately, this story is all too common—for both parties. It’sfrustrating to the salesperson or consultant who has invested her orhis time with an account, but can’t seem to advance the account farenough  to  get  an  order.  And  it’s  frustrating  to  the  people  at  theaccount to invest their time in meetings that end without any defi-nite  progress.  What’s  wrong?  Although  Heather  knew  many  keypeople,  she  didn’t  have  an  internal  champion  inside  the  account.Rather  than  investing  all  her  time  in  developing  superficial  rela-tionships, she should have focused more of her energies on findingand maintaining an account champion. 
THE INTRICACIES INSIDE THE ACCOUNTIn Strategic Selling, Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman reveal thattop-performing  salespeople  have  internal  “coaches”  who,  amongother things, help guide the salespeople over, under, and around thevarious  political  sensitivities  and  hidden  agendas  within  theaccount.8 In Miller and Heiman’s terminology, coach means “inter-nal account champion.” Later, I will use the term coach to refer tothe role the sales manager or an outside trainer undertakes when heor she teaches a sales rep or gives one-on-one feedback about salesskills. Therefore, for the sake of clarity, in this discussion I will useinternal champion instead of Miller and Heiman’s word coach.9
The internal champion functions as an “inside salesperson” forthe  “outside  salesperson.”  In  other  words,  when  the  salespersonisn’t at the account and when closed-door meetings take place, thesalesperson’s internal champion can go to bat to support the sale.In  some  cases,  the  internal  champion  will  even  sell  the  outside
22
t h e   2 4   s a l e s   t r a p s
salesperson’s ideas, opinions, and solutions to the key people in hisor her own organization.10
Understanding the political issues and recognizing the sacredcows within an account is just another key element in an outsidefocus that puts the customer first. Corporate cultures breed sen-sitivities  and  strong  opinions,  and  salespeople  have  to  have  aninside track in order to understand these issues and therefore tosell effectively. Today’s salespeople need to send the message thatthey  care  enough  to  understand  the  client’s  behind-the-scenesconcerns.  Because  complex  sales  involve  multiple  players  withvarious  perspectives,  an  internal  champion  is  necessary  if  thesalesperson is to navigate the corridors and unlock doors through-out the account. 
WAYS THE INTERNAL CHAMPION HELPSReturning  to  the  scenario  with  Heather,  let’s  see  how  having  aninternal  champion  might  have  helped.  If  Heather  had  taken  thetime to identify, select, and ask for the help of an internal cham-pion, she might have secured the business relationship and cut hersales cycle in half. And she might also have reduced the frustrationlevel of certain people within the account who felt that she wasn’tmaking progress. 
The internal champion could have advised Heather that the pres-ident of his company had been a college roommate of the senior vicepresident  of  sales  for  Heather’s  competitor.  This  might  have  ledHeather  to  use  a  different  strategy.  For  example,  she  could  havesuggested that her company did not expect to replace the competi-tor’s business, but would merely supplement it. That way, Heatherwouldn’t  have  been  a  threat  to  the  relationship  between  Global’spresident and his college friend. 
This inside information would have also reduced the anxiety levelof people at Global who reported to the president and knew of hisrelationship  with  her  competitor’s  senior  manager. While  there  is
a d o p t   a n   o u t s i d e   f o c u s
23
rarely  such  a  thing  as  just  one  decision  maker  in  a  complex  sale,there is almost always an internal champion who can help make anaffirmative decision a little bit easier. 
HOW TO IDENTIFY AN INTERNAL CHAMPIONThe following steps will help you to identify your internal champion:
1. Find decision influencers and decision makers. List the key deci-sion influencers (people who do not have the final say butwill  influence  the  decision  outcome)  and  decision  makers(the people who will take the responsibility for making thedecision).
2. Determine which of the decision influencers and decision makerswill help you. Seek out their colleagues’ perceptions of thesepotential  internal  champions.  When  seeking  perceptions,you are trying to get answers to such questions as, Whichof the people within the company might be willing to help?Which ones can you trust? Which ones have the power butmaybe not the position? Which ones’ ideas would be morelikely  to  align  with  your  own  philosophy  of  business?Which ones are destined for promotion?
3. Ask for introductions. If you don’t already know one or moreof these potential internal champions, you might ask some-one in the account that you do know if he or she would bekind enough to introduce you.
4. Meet. Try to secure a thirty-minute initial meeting with thepotential internal champion to assess how you might workwith her or him. This internal champion can also advise youon  your  sales  strategy  and  offer  advice  and  counsel  con-cerning the best plan for developing a partnership betweenyour organization and the client’s.
24
t h e   2 4   s a l e s   t r a p s
5. Ask the person if he or she will function as your internal cham-pion. Ask the individual to help you, so that you can be themost effective not only for yourself and your company, butalso for the account. Explain that his or her suggestions andcounsel will not only help you to avoid potential land minesbut also help you to create better value for the champion’scompany by enabling you to understand its inner workingsmore fully. 
ACTION POINTS➔ You  can’t  do  it  by  yourself. Research  shows  that  to  make  complex
sales, you need to have an internal champion.
➔ Maintain two-way communication with your internal champion. Makean  agreement  with  your  internal  champion  to  keep  each  otherapprised of the efforts each of you is making. 
➔ Don’t become too dependent on one account champion. A note of cautionhere: People in organizations change. They retire, they’re replaced,they’re promoted, and they fall out of favor. Be careful not to placeall your eggs in one basket with just one internal champion. Themore  perspectives  and  insights  that  you  can  get  into  the  innerworkings of an account, the better—for both parties.
SALES  TRUTH 2: In  complex  selling,  you  needan internal champion.
a d o p t   a n   o u t s i d e   f o c u s
25
sales trap 3:It’s Best to Offer Solutions to Problems You See
As a general rule, it’s good to offer solutions to customer problems.
True or false?If you say “true,” you’re like a lot of salespeople I know. But you’re wrong. It’s a mistake to assume that you should offer solutions to cus-tomer problems that you see. Contrary to the conventional wisdom,it’s  generally  not  a  good  idea  to  offer  your  solutions  to  customerproblems unless the customer recognizes these problems.11 The fal-lacy  is  that  if  we  can  help  customers  understand  their  problemsclearly  enough—if  we’re  persuasive  enough  as  salespeople—thenthey’ll  buy  what  we’re  selling.  But  this  doesn’t  always  work.Moreover, like Sales Traps 1 and 2, this trap causes the salespersonto focus on himself or herself and not on the customer, which resultsin fewer successful sales.
TRYING TO GET THE BUYER TO SEE A PROBLEMConsider  the  following  example  in  which  the  buyer  doesn’t  see  aproblem  as  being  big  enough  to  solve.  How  does  the  consultantreact?  In  this  dialogue,  Joe  is  a  consultant  selling  advertising  ser-vices. Bev, the customer, is the vice president (VP) of marketing ata major corporation:
Joe (consultant): What ad agency do you presently use?
Bev  (VP  of  marketing): Gloom,  Gloomier,  &  Gloomiest  in New York.
Joe: Are you happy with their ad campaigns?
Bev: Not  necessarily.  They  don’t  seem  to  generate  as  muchbusiness as we would like.
26
t h e   2 4   s a l e s   t r a p s
Joe: That is too bad. But we will be able to help you there. Ourad  campaigns  are  likely  to  increase  your  sales  here  atOptimism, Ltd.
Bev: Well, they might do that. But we’re not ready to changead agencies just yet. Our problem with Gloom is not seriousenough for us to change agencies at this point. It’s true thatone ad campaign that we selected from Gloom didn’t performas well as we had hoped. But, hey, Joe, those things happen.We have been with Gloom for thirteen years now. Besides,we may have an image problem—at least according to one ofour clients.
Joe: I understand, Bev. We could really help you there. One ofour core competencies is conducting ad and PR campaigns toimprove a company’s image.
Bev: Hold on, Joe. I know you could probably solve that prob-lem. But it’s really not big enough for us to sweat that either,and  we  aren’t  willing  to  go  through  the  hassle  of  changingagencies. Remember, only one of our clients seems concernedabout our image. The rest of them, about 99 percent, thinkour image is great. Why don’t I call you when we are ready tochange  agencies?  Thanks  for  stopping  by,  though,  Joe.  Wemay be in touch.
Joe  kept  trying  to  sell  his  solution  to  what  he  perceived  wasthe  customer’s  problem  without  listening  to  the  customer.  Hedidn’t  want  to  hear  that  Bev  didn’t  think  the  problem  was  bigenough to solve, and he lost the sale. By probing more effectively,Joe might have saved the sale. He could have explored the conse-quences of the problem (and perhaps led Bev to see it as more seri-ous) or explored other problems that might be a reason for a changeof agencies. 
a d o p t   a n   o u t s i