The 10 Foot Rule

Recently, I had the pleasure of working with a co-worker on my team that covers another territory within my state on a direct ride along.

During this time, he was able to articulate a few sales principles that I have always practiced but never really considered as part of a sales dynamic. Even better than this, he was able to remind me of what Sam Walton spent his life practicing. Mr. Walton called it “the ten-foot rule”. The rule is simple: if you come within 10 feet of a customer, look him or her in the eye, smile and ask if you can help

My grandmother always told me that I had the “gift of gab” and with this, I never really considered it any further. This was always something that I just knew about myself. It was always fun for me to walk into a situation and simply strike up conversations with whom ever happened to be close by.

Over the years, my careers have not always had the title of “sales” but it has always been a blessing to have the skills for this as well as my old stand by “gift of gab”.

During my interaction, Andy (my counterpart and team member) was able to place into words the simple rules of the “ten foot rule” that I had been living for so long and add reasons behind them.

1.      When visiting a client, make it a point to visit with the people that interact and are a part of your targeted decision makers organization.

When you take the time to develop these relationships you are able to gain valuable intel on your client as well as the decision maker themselves. Things as simple as “are they in a good mood?” or “if they are happy with the solutions you have been providing”, etc.

You begin to develop a relationship with the organization that you are working with that is more personal and intimate than just simply knowing what they do or what they sell. Having this relationship can mean the difference between keeping the relationship when push comes to shove and a choice to keep your product or continue with a competitor has to be made. After all, you never know how much of an influencer the person you are talking to really is. Can a personal relationship really hurt?

Talking to the people around your decision maker can often time reveal hidden needs, challenges they are facing, how the decision maker really feels about your product, or other problems that you might be able to solve, thus cementing your relationship with the organization!

2.      Taking the time to speak to other members of the organization on your way out as well.

Again, while you are leaving, take the time to chat with people. Leaving yourself enough time to not leave in a rush shows that they are important to you.

As you are leaving, take a moment if the opportunity arises, and chat with the people around you, or on your way out.

Recently, when Andy and I were leaving a client, Andy noticed one of the employees working on a task that he happened to have some excellent information on that would assist the organization on a 25% increase on click throughs on their web site.

Andy, like a pro, struck up a conversation with the gentleman and expressed that he thought the gentleman was doing a great job and asked him if he had considered adjusting his attack slightly? He compliment the gentleman and politely referenced a recent study by our company that expressed a very slight change in the starting order of the task that would gain significant results with no change to the amount of time or effort that was being placed on the task.

After all of this was done and the information was well received, the inevitable question came… “what is your role within this organization?”

After 10 minutes of previous conversation and consulting that had assisted the organization, we had discovered that this gentleman was a family man and avid hunter, and information that there was a chance that one of or solution products might be dropped, but after asking this final question, it was revealed that he was the GSM and one of the sub-decision makers to the primary that we had been speaking with.

Granted, this wasn’t as big as picking up a hitch-hiker, only to later discover that he was Howard Hues, but it was a revelation which leads me to the final point.

Treat everybody as if they were the CEO of your own company and had married your sister.

Often times, “our character is revealed in how we treat those that we don’t need to treat well”. It has always been my goal to serve everybody around me and to know the names of those who enter into my bubble. Even the janitor!

Simply enough, having worked very hard and achieving any of my success from the ground up, I realize that there is not one person below me, or above me. We are all equal.

Even within leadership roles, I consider my style to be parallel leadership rather than directive.

Your mother always told you that you would catch more flies with honey applies here as well. Influencing others will always develop stronger ties and deeper “buy in” than simple direction alone. Taking the time to be truly interested in those around you will always produce better results than anything else.

I am grateful to my friend for influencing me to think about this more clearly. It truly has been an illuminating experience for me and now that I have finally put it into words, I hope for you as well.