5 Simple Truths for Dealing With Your Selfish Customer

Self•ish (adjective): lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure. egocentric; self-centered.

Recently, a sales person said something very interesting to me:

“These customers are so demanding. They think they can call all their own shots. They are so selfish.”

My response: “Correct. What else ya got?”

Here is a news flash for you: Your customer IS inherently selfish. It is their job description, for crying out loud.

We become better sales professionals when we keep these five simple truths in mind:

1) Your customer is a selfish, self-centered, self-seeking, self-obsessed creature. Your customer earned their money through hard work and your customer wants to spend that hard-earned money on their terms. Deal with it.

2) Your job as a sales professional is NOT to make moral judgments about the behavior of your customer. How they act is not necessarily who they are. And even if your customer is a bad person (and, yes, Virginia, bad people sometimes buy from us!), see Truth #5.

3) Your customer is the absolute expert on what they want and how they want it. You do not get a vote.

4) Your customer is the expert about their own emotions…even if they are lacking facts. Decisions come from emotions, not facts. That means you either deal with their emotions or you stand to lose the sale. Your choice.

5) Take away your customer and their “attitude” and see what that does for your commission check and your career.

Here is another approach: Fall on your knees and thank the Good Lord above for these strange, wonderful, confusing, demanding, selfish creatures called customers.

Then figure out how you can change their world.