Unless you are in the Fresh Produce Sector!

This is Equiteq's contribution to the RainToday.com Selling Services Challenge

So what is a radish in the context of a sales pitch?
Imagine that you are home lazily watching television, and an advertisement comes on for a fancy, up-market, kitchen food-processor.

“Dries and shreds lettuce in a moment” claims the announcer.
In the summer we are always having salads with our barbeques you think, so that would be really useful.

“Chops potatoes into perfect chip size”
Fantastic, as I would like have fish and chips every Friday, but am put off by having to chop by hand.

“slices cucumbers in an instance”
That will be great when the mother-in-law comes for tea, and is an easy way to impress her.

“…..peels radishes….”
Yuurrrgghhhch, you think.  I hate radishes.

In an instant you are put totally off a product that otherwise has great features and benefits. And so it is that you must avoid having ‘radishes’ in your consulting or service sales pitches.  These are items that can put a buyer, often totally irrationally, off your solution.  For example, the client maybe happy with your price of $200,000, and happy that you are planning to spend about 120 days, but if you explicitly mention a day rate of over $1,600 that may cause a negative reaction.  It could be a simple as a spelling error or incorrect piece of data. The reason radishes must be avoided is that they become firmly embedded in the buyer’s mind and can be difficult to overcome.

These are not the same as objections.

A good sales person will always be pushing to find the buyers objections – the reasons that they will not place the order there and then – so that these can be addressed and the sale advanced. So, hunt for objections but avoid planting radishes!