Thought 13JAN2010

SPEAK THE CUSTOMER'S LANGUAGE
In 1955, when I was office head salesman in Procter & Gamble's Memphis district, I was assigned to spend a day in the field with the district's senior sales rep, Charlie 'Soapy' Asbury. Charlie had been around for over 20 years and was a legend in Mississippi, where he had always lived and worked, It seemed like virtually every retail store owner and retail clerk knew Soapy; these people would wait impatiently from month to month to just hear his tales, his jokes and of course, his spiel lauding P&G's soaps. Young sales reps who were assigned to work with Soapy considered it an honour as well as an invaluable learning experience. That day in the Mississippi Delta country was an eye-opener for me. To my surprise, Soapy did not use any of the proven techniques we had all been taught from the manual. He just walked in and took over a store by sheer force of personality. His arrival at any of these small mom-and-pop stores, which controlled the business in that area (there were no supermarkets in this territory in those days), was equivalent to a movie star making a grand entry. Everyone, including the customers, looked up to Charlie and treated him as somebody special.

One of ,my first stops with Charlie was at a very small store that was typical of the time and place. Out front was an antique gasoline pump; two hound dogs sat on the small porch. Waiting for Charlie inside were the Chinese couple who owned the store. They lived in a room just behind the selling area of this tiny store. And, as I quickly observed, their command of English was limited. The first words out of Soapy's mouth were, "Is you bed soft or hard, Mr Bing?" Without a moment's hesitation, Mr Bing replied, "Bed is hard!" Hearing this, Soapy declared, "Thank you very much, Mr Bing, I'll see you next trip." As soon as we got outside, I asked Soapy what that had been all about. He explained that due to lack of storage space, Mr Bing kept all the cases of his P&G products under his bed in the back room. Therefore, when the bed was hard, he had ample inventory; but when the bed was soft, he needed to reorder from Soapy. Soapy knew everything about his customers.
Lou Pritchett - extracted from 'Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work', Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Maida Rogerson, Martin Rutte & Tim Clauss, Health Communications, Inc., 1996.
Part with your head, but not with your secret - Kurdish Proverb