“Sell me this pen!” If you are into the Sales profession, most probably, someone would have asked you this question either in a job interview or in a Sales training session. This question is meant to test someone’s ability to sell a product, even a simple one like a pen, evaluating his/her sales technique, creativity and confidence to make a sales pitch. Moreover, it is aimed to assess how well the responder can problem-solve on the spot, as he/she must articulate his/her thoughts and present an argument quickly and concisely, simulating the real Sales world where objections and questions come up frequently.
From my experience, the most common mistake that we make when answering, is that we immediately resort to the features of the pen (colour, material, dimensions etc.), mainly because both buyer and seller can see them, and we assume that we know what someone looks for in a pen. Unfortunately, most of the times, this is not the case, because it is not the features that we care about, but the end benefit that the product gives us.
The whole point behind this exercise for the seller is to understand if the buyer uses a pen, how frequently they use it, what kind of pens they prefer and what needs they fulfill by using a pen. Therefore, it should actually become a qualifying session, which should help us to find out what are the needs of the other side, before we try to sell to them a pen.
Personally, I have used this question in most of the trainings that I have done lately concerning Sales and to make things more difficult I’m stating to the aspiring seller that I scarcely use a pen, as I own a digital notebook for the past three years. As you may appreciate, most of the times the sellers don’t manage to sell, but during the debrief of the exercise they do understand that with the right questions, they could be able to sell more than a single pen. How can this be possible?
At the beginning of the trainings, I always share with the audience that I’m a father of three children currently aged fifteen, fourteen and ten years old. Therefore, prior to the “Sell me the pen!” exercise people know this information but fail to make much use of it. But how can it be of any use, one might ask.
Parents with children at school can identify with me that one of the most annoying things that happen when your children ask for your help with a school exercise is that time is lost because they can’t find a pen to write (this certainly happens in my case). Therefore, if the seller asked me, if I’m faced with such an issue, I would answer positively. This could unlock an opportunity for him/her to sell more than one pen, as I would be open to buy even a dozen of these pens, keep them in a drawer in my office table and whenever one of my children would be desperately looking for a pen after requesting my help with an exercise, I would readily provide one and no time would be lost.
Another critical information that is shared beforehand, is about the company that I work for and my role in it. So, the seller might ask about the number of people that work for the company and if they have a need for stationery and specifically for pens. The answer would be positive; therefore, the seller could ask me to bring him in touch with the person in the organisation that is responsible for the supply of pens and may end up selling hundreds of pens instead of one.
In conclusion, the test that we need to pass with the “Sell me this pen!” exercise is to get to know the buyer before we form our sales pitch. We need to connect the dots and explore opportunities by taking advantage of all the available information that will be gathered through asking questions or from what we already know. If we manage to do that, then the chances are that, in the end, we will be selling more than one pen.