Sales people...we all know them, unfortunately these words don’t always inspire a wholly positive image due to the annoying antics by a minority of the profession. I have had around 10 jobs in my life,most of them totally unrelated but none have been remotely involved with sales so selling goodMix is quite an interesting twist in my career path.
It didn’t take long under the guidance of Brad Hull and Jeanie McClymont, the gurus of goodMix in Australia, to establish the basics of what may hopefully lead to a sale, and henceforth one more happy and healthy customer who is now on the goodMix wagon. Firstly, you the customer have to be convinced that you are not being sold an overpriced bag of birdseeds. I have recently met a lady who loves sharing Blend 11 with her birds, but so far only one, and incidentally I’ve since been advised by Jeanie that cacao nibs are often toxic to animals! So please, if you do share your goodMix with furry or feathered friends then remove the cacao nibs - I want to be able to sleep at night knowing I’m not responsible for any negative outcomes involving a family pet :-(
So while standing behind the table at a farmers market stall in Australia, chatting to many customers each day you can develop a sort of sixth sense as to who may be interested in trialling goodMix, which can be a source of both amusement and frustration. Basically there are those who are interested in goodMix products and those who aren’t...anyone who is interested in taking care of their health normally will stop for a look, if only briefly, and the general population is thankfully becoming more health conscious by the day - which is a great thing for almost everyone, apart from those unfortunate enough to be involved with the fast food industry! McDonalds are scrambling to try to change their image but that will be a huge task, good luck to them, they’ll need it!
Once the healthy minded people have checked out the products and bought a packet of some of the most nutritious food on the planet, this then leaves us with those who are less inclined to chose the healthy option. “Have a taste” the original icebreaker phrase used to get the attention of a passer by at a market stall in Australia for some reason will, around 80% of the time get a response from this crowd of, “nah mate that stuff looks too healthy for me”. Nothing remarkable in itself but when you see this whole process unfold around 10 times per day it’s easy to establish a very predictable pattern. I have to admit I was not the most health conscious guy for a long time, most certainly not between Friday afternoon and Monday mornings anyway. But over time I’ve grown, at least slightly more responsible. The “too healthy for me” crowd make me think hard about the choices we make. They are almost always overweight and often not overly healthy in appearance, ironically these are the people who most need to make serious adjustments to their lives - or the future is (very predictably), that they will suffer unecesarily from completely preventable health issues most likely.
Being a keen new seller of goodMix I would really like to help these people and see them take a bag home, but that is normally a serious sales challenge! Without offending it’s not easy to highlight their plight, of which they themselves may be well aware of but just unwilling to admit there are some serious changes needed. We are constantly reminded of the modern health crisis of obesity and diabetes etc and all the other problems that go with them, but until I started my career as a goodMix salesman it was never so obvious, this job puts a laser focus on the customer walking by, so think a second longer if you are walking past a well meaning salesperson trying to sell you something healthy, maybe it could be worth stopping for a look, do it for your grandchildrens sake at least.