You've Bought a Mooch!

You’ve Bought a Mooch!

You’ve Bought a Mooch!

Back in June I wrote a blog which referenced some events in my early career as a car sales executive. At that time my sales manager was a marvellous character called Steve Wright (no, not that one!). Steve was instrumental in making me a much better and more effective salesperson by coaching & instilling business disciplines and standards, most of which have stayed with me to this day.

 Now, I will state for the record that I wasn’t the best sales executive in the dealership – that honour fell to my colleague who was simply hungrier, more tenacious and relentless in his pursuit of prospects. This tenacity sometimes manifested itself in a slightly less than customer-centric way, but it was the early 90s and manufacturers were a long way away from measuring customer satisfaction at that point!

So, because I was the ‘nice guy’, I sometimes had fallow periods. The sales funnel became emptier and I became more desperate. Happily, these periods were few and far between (in the interests of balance I was/am a very capable salesperson!) but during such times I would be looking to do a deal with pretty much anyone.

I do believe in the power of the Universe (what you give out you tend to get back) and when you’re desperate for a sale the Universe will provide you with a less than ideal potential customer. Steve used to call them a ‘Mooch’ – the type of person that despite having had the shirt off your back and shaken hands with you would then demand your shoes as well as ‘part of the deal’. 

I remember distinctly during a fallow period dealing with a prospect and being desperate to sell them a car and Steve saying to me: “Do you really want to own a Mooch?” This wasn’t disrespectful language or behaviour towards a customer, it was Steve being able to look objectively at the customer in question, their behaviour and deducing (accurately, as it turned out) that they would be an absolute nightmare as a long-term customer.

Which leads me to my point (and question) – How many times are we comfortable with being able to say to a prospect who has all of the hallmarks of being problematic and ultimately very costly: “Thank you for your enquiry, but we’re not going to able to do business”? My belief is that happy customers who are loyal and regularly refer others to us are always profitable and that the opposite applies to the ones who, despite everything we do, will never be happy.

So, in a challenging market that doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of improvement in the foreseeable future, is it a good business practice to turn a potential customer away? I’m interested to hear your views.