Conference season is coming up and that means we will get the invariable soul that walks into our both and asks the question: “How much?”. Now after you’ve been standing on your heels for a few hours, it’s hard unless you’re a sales guy at core to not get flippant. And well at core I’m not a sales guy.
So I start to give my speech about how staffing system implementations need to be seen as a dynamic and socially complex business undertaking that happens to involve computers and not as a computer purchase that happens to involve people. But it’s no use – they don’t listen and get indignant that you’re not giving them a price.
I’ve learned from some trade show pros about how to handle this situation. You take the prospect’s hand and say something to the effect of “You want a great system at a low price, right?”, and, gripping their right elbow with your left hand as you shake theirs with your right, you escort them over to a competitor booth that doesn’t have any traffic. The competitor is delighted, and you’re off the hook.
This technique can also work for the booth rat. The booth rat is the prospect that won’t leave, won’t stop talking, and probably is at the conference for entirely different motives (alchohol and sleazy sex come to mind…or, even worse, to soak up information to write their own system).
