The dummy curve in action
In our last blog, we talked about how you can have “Beginners luck” forever, being a dummy. Well, a smart doll, much like our favorite detective, Lieutenant Columbo. If he ever watched the hit TV show Colombo, you would know that he was a master at disarming suspects by looking and acting like he was a fool. And Colombo always caught his killer. You can do the same in sales by disarming your prospects when you play the fictional seller
master the dummy curve it takes time and practice. It’s a process that plays out throughout your sales career. As you improve with the use of dummy curve approach, you will accelerate your growth as you learn to reassure your prospects and uncover their pain. Let’s take a look at an example of the dummy curve in action:
Carlos is a salesman and works in the heater section of a department store. Carlos is a college boy who has a summer job in New England. As he may know, New England summers are quite warm. Not many people buy home heaters in July. Carlos waits patiently for a customer to come in, but since he hasn’t had any leads for hours and is tired of standing, he sits down on a bucket to rest.
Finally, an old lady approaches and asks: “Do you have heaters?” Carlos gets out of his bucket and says: “Why yes, we do.” He leads her to the heaters and they go through them together. They are reading the boxes and taking out the instructions. He is learning alongside her, which strengthens her bond and creates a relationship between them. Before long, the lady says, “I’ll take this one. Now where do I pay for it, son?” Carlos says, “Well, right over there; let me walk you.” He takes the heater to the register, someone calls out to her, and she goes on her merry way.
Three weeks later, the company calls the manager of the department store and says: “Hey, your heater sales are up 300% over the same three weeks last year. What’s going on down there?” The manager replies, “Well, we have this boy named Carlos, he sits in a bucket.” Corporate then grievances, “Well send him here to heater school. He’s doing great. Let’s make him even better.”
So Carlos goes to heater school and learns about BTUs, radiant heat and much more, increasing his knowledge of heater products. When he returns to the store a week later, he sits on the bucket again, only this time he’s leaning forward. Another old lady walks into the heating department. Before he can say anything, Carlos jumps out of the bucket and says: “I can help?” “Okay, yes,” he says, taking a step back, “I’m looking for a heater.” “Oh boy, we have heaters!”Carlos says enthusiastically.
Carlos shows her all the products and gives her the pony and dog show, talking about the fifteen different types of warmers he has in the store. He goes on and on, layering features on benefits, bombarding the lady with all the information she learned in heater school. He finally stops and asks: “Do you have any questions?“She says, “Only one.”Carlos replies, “Yeah, what is that?” She says meekly, “Will it keep a little old lady warm?” Carlos isn’t sure what to say. Exhausted, the old lady walks away and does not buy a heater.
For the next three weeks, Carlos’s sales are very low. As he sits on his bucket, he begins to wonder why his numbers plummeted. “I was doing so well,” he thinks of himself. “Then I went to heater school. When I reintroduced my product knowledge, I did worse. Hmm. I’m going back to what I used to do in the beginning. Ask a lot of questions, listen a lot, and not talk as much.”
Carlos goes back to doing some of the things he did before the product training, on purpose, like asking questions instead of giving monologues about the product and features. Suddenly, he notices that his heater sales are increasing again. Carlos answers prospects’ questions very politely with his own questions, and in the process discovers the real intent of his questions. Carlos is uncovering the pain. He notices that more people are connecting with him and more people are buying instead of making excuses by saying: “I’ll think about it.” He does even more of this “dummy” stuff on purpose, and crashes the previous weeks goals, at which point the corporate office calls him to congratulate him. Carlos discovers that he is not working as hard and is selling more. Pretty silly, huh?
Oh, one more thing: Stay tuned for more on the Dummy Curve. In our next blog, we’ll cover the three stages of the Dummy Curve.