Blowhard Salespeople Make Me Gag

I recently wrote about the repulsive behavior of salespeople who are blowhards. Blowhards are people who are mysteriously compelled to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. When blowhards are salesmen, they are sales killers. They can’t help themselves and should be chloroformed.

Blowhards almost always destroy a good sales mood. It’s enough to make me cry.

Many salespeople are not blowhards. Occasionally, however, we all say the wrong thing at the wrong time and ruin the sales mood. Sometimes, saying the wrong thing or attempting to make conversation about a controversial person or simply uttering the wrong word can be a sales killer.

When that happens, you have created an irreparable, irretrievable, horrible perception with a customer and you will never again get past the customer’s receptionist. You are done.

“Sales mood,” by the way, is a new concept that I have just introduced and it occurs to me there are many other mood killers, which I’ll write about soon. Wait, I didn’t just “introduce” the concept of “sales mood,” I invented it.

Speaking the wrong word or a raising the wrong subject can paint the wrong impression of you. You want your customers and prospects to think of you as a responsible graphic arts professional, not an avid reader of People magazine who is busy following the careers of Paris Hilton or Mel Gibson instead of watching their jobs.

So I’m going to give you some words and subjects to avoid. Many of these subjects are worn thin by the media—TV, newspapers, magazines and the Internet.

No matter where you turn or what you read, you are apt to see the name “Charlie Sheen.” Charlie earns three Mañana Man Gag awards and I used to love the guy when he was “Wild Thing” pitching the Cleveland Indians to a championship in the movie “Major League.”