Sales Promises

Imagine you’re a salesperson for a boutique car manufacturer and you’re having a sales conversation with a new, important customer:

Customer: Thanks for seeing me. I’m really looking forward to one of your custom cars!
Salesperson: Absolutely. You can choose a 2-door or 4-door. It will be ready from the factory in 2 months.
Customer: Actually, I'd like a 6-door.

Let’s sketch out two possible responses:

• promise anything

• promise what you can

Promise Everything

Salesperson: Absolutely!
Customer: Great, when can I have it?
Salesperson: Our 2-door and 4-door cars have a lead time of 2 months. I’m sure we can do the same for a 6-door!

Promise What You Can

Salesperson: This relationship is important to us, and your business is important to us. While we do offer a high level of customization, we’ve never offered a 6-door, so I can't say with certainty how long that would take. I can check with my team. I expect it would double the timeline. Alternatively, we could deliver you a 2-door and/or a 4-door in 2 months to meet your immediate needs. If the 6-door remains important, we could revisit that after delivery.
Customer: I chose you because I heard you offer more customization than your competitors.
Salesperson: We do. I also want you to understand the tradeoffs involved with this request: a 2-door and/or 4-door in 2 months, or a 6-door with a longer, less certain timeline.
Customer: I need a car in 3 months. I’ll take a 4-door and keep in touch.

Closing

I don’t work in sales, so can you really trust my advice? I can’t say. What I can say is that the promise everything route may lead to disappointed customers and will lead to unhappy people at your company.

Is this scenario too simplistic to be useful? Even if it is, there are some lessons you can apply:

1. Know what you can reliably deliver in a given timeframe.

2. Know which changes to your offerings will make a timeframe uncertain.

3. Don’t estimate on behalf of others doing the work.