We should be enthusiastic when talking to potential customers about our products and services.

But we also should be careful not to cross the line and go from enthusiasm to something else!

When you pounce on customers and immediately bombard them with pitches and presentations, you might get the opposite effect and send them running away from you.

That’s what happens when poor unsuspecting brides turn up to a wedding fair and get mugged by 40 vendors.

She goes from being a giddy lady, and all of a sudden she starts saying “no thanks I’m just looking”.

Even when most people have a genuine need, they don’t like being hassled or hustled.

That’s the feelings we conjure when we come out too strong at the start of the conversation.

This dynamic is the same whether you sell insurance, inverter batteries, legal services, or shoes over the internet.

Don’t start off the conversation with the sales pitch and the immediate “calls to buy”.

What should you do?

If you follow sound sales and marketing communications principles, you should be just fine.

For instance old school Nigerian advertising and marketing professionals used to talk about creating attention and interest under the AIDA framework.

So how about that? How about trying to create attention and desire before going into the sales pitch?

There are also old school universal sales practices that require you to engage in a conversation with a customer before making a sales pitch.

The goal of the conversation is to find out what the customer needs or wants, or possible things they could use your product or service for.

If you are able to do this, then you will have all the information you need to make a relevant and targeted sales pitch.

Whatever it is that you choose to do, it’s obvious that the sales pitch or the presentation shouldn’t be your first tool of choice when talking with a potential customer.

We should be talking to as many people as we can, but we should also be aiming to turn down less of them than we actually do.