What ‘sell me this pen’ is really about

“Sell me this pen.”

It’s one of the most famous lines from Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. In the scene where the line is from, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Jordan Belfort, asks one of his associates to sell him a pen.

It might seem like a simple test but its true meaning is not actually about trying to sell a piece of stationery. Rather, it’s about how well a salesperson can understand their client’s needs so they can illustrate why that client would consider buying their solution in the first place.

This is an idea that some salespeople might not fully grasp, says Roy Tan, vice president of sales and account management at Tech in Asia.

“You might end up doing inventory-based selling – simply plugging unideal solutions to key phrases that clients provided,” he says.

Such misconceptions could lead to ineffective courses of action.

What they want vs. What you think they want

One of the biggest issues with having an inventory-focused approach is that it causes a mismatch between a client’s objectives and the goals set by the sales team.

This is a problem that starts from the very beginning of the relationship. While both parties may have an onboarding call to hash things out, it may only contain surface-level discussions that fail to fully illustrate what a client needs.

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Subsequently, a salesperson might suggest something from their team’s inventory with a certain aim in mind, even if it doesn’t properly address the client’s goals. This sets things up for friction and failure.

For instance, a client might indicate that they were looking to improve their brand awareness. In this scenario, a salesperson who doesn’t probe further might suggest hosting an event and focusing on gathering as many attendees as possible.

However, the client’s real goal might have been getting good-quality leads that they can take action on later. The onus is on the salesperson to figure this out before suggesting solutions or, in this case, organizing the event with the sole aim of inviting as many attendees as possible.

“What a client sets as a key performance indicator (KPI) to deliver could be vastly different from what you’re measuring at the end of the day,” says Tan. “For example, if a client spent US$50,000 and got 100 attendees, the sales team might think it was a job well done because it only cost about US$500 per person who turned up,” he continues. “But if the client only managed to secure 10 leads, then that would be US$5,000 per lead, which is expensive.”

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