The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

With this age of being able to reach and sell to so many people so fast, through mass selling, the attitude of throw a number of darts at the dartboard and some will stick, is disappearing and many darts are sticking more quickly, because so many people are being targeted and reached.

However this is a dangerous approach, because the damage done by failing to deliver can haunt a Company for years. I think Michael O'Leary of Ryan Air understands this. He promised a service and delivered it until the UK airports came to a grinding halt, with the recent 'terror over the Atlantic' plot. He has taken the bull by the horns and is kicking up a fuss about our lack of ability to deal with the situation. If you are going to sell to the mass market, you had better be prepared for it, like organising a small military action, making sure all the people are in place, everyone is trained and knows what is expected of them and the right hand always knows what the left hand is doing. If the airports had been able to deal with the issues and why shouldn't they be ready, Mr. O'Leary would not have been so upset that, weeks after the crisis, things are still not back to working in an orderly fashion. After all we have been in competition for many years with Charles de Gaulle airport for Heathrow to be the best and first landing point in Europe.

So we are going back and in the case of many companies, large and small, have gone full circle and now engage in making a proper sale. This is at present, rather limited to selling business to business. Salespersons know and understand their product. Questions are answered honestly and comprehensively and the salesperson knows they can deliver.

This is why so many organisations will employ a native speaker to sell into another country. This is not only because they speak the language, but because they understand the business culture and the way business people are expected to behave in that country. These sales people know how to professionally communicate with each other. We speak a 'different' language from the US for instance, when we say very soon, we often mean next week, the US will often interpret that as 'tomorrow'. However a Spanish businessman may understand that this might take a few weeks and a German person will want to be given a precise date.

"Plus c'est la meme chose, plus ça change"