The Dangers of Over-Familiarity in Sales

By Matthew Parker

The following post was originally published by Printing Impressions. To read more of their content, subscribe to their newsletter, Today on PIWorld.

I received a terrible sales call recently.

There were lots of things wrong with it, but the issues that wound me up the most was that the salesperson kept calling me Matt. For business calls my name is Matthew, not Matt. When I corrected the salesperson he clearly took offense and started calling me Mr. Parker instead.

The familiarity issue is far more common that I realized.

I posted a bit of a rant about the call on LinkedIn. It clearly resonated with a lot of people—there are nearly 70 comments so far. It showed that I was far from alone in suffering from this sort of sales approach.

There were many stories of people who had been called by the wrong name or called “mate” or similar. No one liked it. And yet these sorts of approaches appear to be increasingly common.

Does your organization suffer from over-familiarity?

The last thing I would do is suggest that anyone who reads my emails would take this sort of approach. But do you have any young, over-enthusiastic salespeople? A delivery driver who can be too friendly? Maybe it is worth just doing a quick audit to make sure that no one is accidentally offending a prospect or customer.

I just want to be clear about one thing: In today’s business environment, using a first name is normally, absolutely fine. It is using abbreviations that can cause a problem. If you are unsure about what name to use, you can always ask!

PS Find out more ideas on how to engage with today’s buyers: download my free e-book “Ten Common Print Selling Errors and What To Do About Them” right now at http://profitableprintrelationships.com/e-book/ You’ll also receive my regular “Views from the print buyer” bulletin, full of ideas on how to sell print effectively. Also, check out my book “Done For You Sales Scripts”. Here’s the link: https://profitableprintrelationships.com/online-training-resources/done-for-you-sales-scripts/

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Matthew Parker Author's page

Many printing companies are frustrated how hard it is to engage buyers in today’s world. That’s where Matthew Parker can help. He is a gamekeeper turned poacher. Parker has bought print for more than 20 years and received over 1,400 print sales pitches. He now uses his buyer’s point of view to give practical advice to printers. He helps them engage with prospects and customers to create profitable relationships.

Download his free e-book, "Ten Common Print Selling Errors And What To Do About Them" and check out his recently launched book, "How To Succeed At Print Sales: Setting targets, planning the right activities and making sure goals are met."