Empowered Telesalespeople

I got a sales call this week from someone representing the Fred Meyer superstore chain. He was calling to sell our preschool in-store advertising. The ads would appear both in the aisles and on the carts themselves. He played up the fact that Fred Meyer has a lot of Hispanic shoppers, though I had to explain to him that though ours is a Spanish preschool, that doesn't necessarily mean we're targeting Hispanic parents and children (it's complicated--more on that some other time).

He didn't miss a beat, noting that we might want to target the same folks who are increasingly buying Fred Meyers organic food products. That made sense to me, given our target demographic. And given the store's relative proximity to our school, it sounded like something worth considering.

He then asked when would be a good time for the local rep to visit with me. At that point I explained that my preschool marketing budget for the year was basically shot and I didn't know if I could afford to do such a program.

At this point, most telemarketing reps would have said, "You can talk about that when you meet with Lou." After all, they probably get a bonus for each meeting they schedule. And the "scheduler" isn't usually authorized to talk about pricing.

I said, "I don't want to waste anyone's time. Could you tell me how much this is going to cost me?" And he said, "Sure," and then proceeded to quote me a price.

It turned out it was too rich for my blood and I told him that. And he then asked if he could call back next year and I didn't hesitate to say yes. I was impressed with the extent to which this salesperson/scheduler was empowered to deal directly with the prospect. They didn't waste my time and I didn't waste theirs. And even though they didn't close the deal, I remain impressed with their professionalism and will certainly be receptive to their message next time.