The best sale: no sale

You poor salesperson, you have strict targets that get stricter all the time, a good part of your remuneration is commission, your boss wants his or her share, too. In short, you are under so much pressure, even the occasional easy mark does not give you the same pleasure as it used to.

No one understands you.

We don't either.

Before we drive a stake through the heart of the modern sales department, we will list a few of the common terms to make you think that we actually understand sales: cross-selling [not the jesus-y kind], upselling [your nose goes here], "sell the sizzle, not the steak" [become a vegan], you are the expert - act like it [it's 99% acting anyway], people need to feel understood [no need to understand them, just make 'em feel like it].

The Mythbusters advertise more than 30 years of special effects experience between them, so the K-Landnews folks started counting and were surprised to discover they share more than 30 years of sales experience between them.

Positive and negative experiences come to anybody who sells something, they are par for the course. Some sales should not have been made but they do not fall under our narrow category of "the best sale: no sale".

Our catchy title left out the condition under which "no sale" becomes the best of sales. That is: when the customer appreciates your move and comes back clamoring for more or different goods and services. This return of the eager customer may not happen in time to save your job, so do yourself a favor: ask the customer to send an email to your boss explaining why they were happy with your "no sale".

Let us give you the example which prompted the post.
Heinz von Foerster, one of the handful of people the K-Landnews team regards as a guiding spirit, recounted a sales story in his memoirs. His job was to sell some expensive goodies for power transformers. He looked at this specific project and told the customer "you don't need this, don't buy it".

His customer was delighted, his boss was not.

The boss changed his mind when the customer came back for a different project exactly because of the outcome of the previous one.

One of the K-Landnews folks pulled off a similar feat, when the analysis of a customer project showed that only one thing needed to be done: nothing.

A smiling, happy customer came back a short time later with a new project and not for a moment felt like haggling over costs and deadlines.