Judging in sales is a NO NO

I have talked about this before in a prior post but wanted to share some more insight and a great example of how NOT to judge. All of us living and working on this planet all have different ways of doing things. We do our hair different, dress different, talk different, act different, look different, we are young, some are older and we have some quirky / strange things we do. However what is mainly constant is our ability to think. All of us have the same brain makeup sort of but need to program it on how to think. ( Another topic we have discussed ). Here is a great example of judging. I was at a partner event the other day who mainly builds and maintains computer networks for education organizations of all sizes. This was kind of like an appreciation event for customers and prospective customers to understand the company better and to get together to share ideas. The keynote speaker was Travis Allen. My peers and I have never heard of him and I hadn't either. When it came time for his speech I could hear the crowd talking about how young he looked and how boy I am not sure how this is gonna go. And to be honest I was slightly skeptical but knew there was something about this kid. ( we will talk about why a SMALL amount of judging is good but that is a later post ). Travis Allen is a 21 year old college student that founded an organization to drive awareness in our school systems that technology and iTouch's are GOOD for the classroom. It's called www.iSchoolinitiative.org. When he presented to the crowd he completely blew us away. Great speaker, smart, educated even at 21, great vision, excellent presentation and entertaining. It was extremely refreshing for me cause I myself am a little disgusted at our education system and fear for my kids future. It isn't easy is this crazy works we live in. However Travis' presentation has really lifted my spirits. Great job Travis. So the moral here is and how it relates to sales is simple. If you are the technology company that is approached by Travis and you immediately close him out cause he looks like a young kid. Well, you just stuck your foot wayyyyy inside your mouth. He has transformed many schools and has helped companies provide solutions to schools increasing their revenue and customer base. Happy selling!!

Shawn
SR@ShawnCReilly.com