Recently I was hiring for 2 top Sales slots for a MNC and had the opportunity of interviewing a few highly experienced candidates. Most of these candidates were honchos of the industry, who couldn’t stop talking about what they had achieved in their professional life so far and went into gory, greasy and boring details of all their achievements. Eventually, I could close one position and the person although from the same industry, had a slightly different product experience profile. Among other reasons for his selection, also was the fact that he didn’t appear to be suffering from what I term as the Laundry list syndrome!
A few days back, terribly tired of my old (1.5 Years) phone set crashing, I decided to trade in and exchange the same. Here the Laundry List syndrome was full on at work. Pick any model and the sales reps would be all over pointing out energetically about the new phone’s features. I quickly trashed as much of the nonsense they dished out and profoundly ignored what ever numbers and features they were churning out. And then, the next day, I picked up the new phone from a rather nondescript retailer. Well he didn’t appear to be under the influence of the Laundry List syndrome either!
So what is this Laundry List Syndrome that apparently guarantees a loss of a fairly good sales opportunity?
The phone wizards first: None of the Sales representatives were concerned about what would be the pattern of my phone usage. Most of them were dishing out information about operating systems, screen size, resolution and other details. Sure that is important and so is a laundry list of what a particular phone can do but for sake of time and brevity it may make sense to be contextual to the needs of the Consumer before gushing out with the goodies. And it is not just the budget you need to figure out, which they try to ascertain in a rather veiled way. If only they establish the context, it should be relatively easier to close the sale. In common sales terms, please ascertain the consumer needs first!
Regarding the hopefuls: The guy who made it, at first tried to figure out what the company was looking for, and mind you, this was beyond the established Job description. He was looking at finer points, in terms of how exactly the company’s distribution worked, what the company’s implicit expectations from the person were, who all he would be managing? These and many questions later, he came out with a rather well structured plan of how he could add value to the company. He did also approach his own laundry list, albeit differently, more as a credential building exercise rather than embarking on an achievement announcement spree.
Quite frankly Laundry Lists are boring for all of us. They need to be checked off but they should not drive the focus of sales pitches or interviews or what ever else we do.
