Are We Selling and Marketing Like the Mattress Industry?

I try to write my posts in a manner that is directly relevant to our lives as business-to-business sales and marketing professionals. You are going to have to stick with me for a few moments on this one, but I do believe that this message is worth some thought.

The three life maintenance activities I hate the most are buying a car, any sort of home mortgage activity and buying a mattress. Within the last three months I have undertaken two of these three dreaded activities—I bought a new car and today I bought a new mattress. I despise these activities to such an extent that I often procrastinate and create a situation that really should be avoided—I really need to make a purchase decision quickly. Why do I hate these purchases so much?

As a generalization, car and mattress/furniture sales people and mortgage brokers sell in an old fashioned, high-pressure manner that creates tremendous tension between buyer and seller. There is often an element of dishonesty and fast talking that puts the onus on the customer to identify the reality of the situation. I will take this moment to apologize to the truly good and talented sales professionals in these fields.

By my walking into the mattress store this afternoon, the store sales staff probably could assume that I either needed or wanted a new mattress. Maybe some people spend their Saturday afternoons just checking out new mattress offerings as a casual hobby, but I certainly do not. I had a source of pain, literally, due to the worn out mattress I currently own. There are numerous places the mattress sales person could have started in order to begin winning my trust and affection.

Are you suffering back pain as a result of your current mattress? Do you have any back, spinal or hip injuries that I should be aware of as I work to help you to select the best mattress for you? Do you believe that you are sleeping restlessly due to an unsuitable mattress? Is price or quality more important to you? Are you looking to make a purchase in the near future, or have you just begun shopping?

Rather than working to understand my needs, the mattress salesman launched into a rapid fire dissertation of the features of their various mattresses. Many of the features, frankly, were not value points to me—it was just noise. I wanted a comfortable mattress, at a fair price (not necessarily the lowest price), that would be durable and easy to keep clean and would be appropriate given the couple of hip and back issues my husband has.

How many of us market and sell too much like the mattress industry? Most of us are seasoned marketing and/or sales professionals. We truly care about our customers and work to target customers that would really benefit from the products and services we have to offer. This being said, we all have numbers we are working to hit or objectives we are working to reach. The best amongst us, if we are honest with ourselves, occasionally fall prey to the mattress salesman mentality in our sales and marketing techniques.

Are we rattling off a list of features that are impressive to us and forget which customer pain points we can help address? Do we translate our snappy technology into “this is what it means for you” value statements? Do we get impatient and become tempted to pull out an old-school high pressure sales or marketing tactic? Do we understand that when a customer walks into “our store” that they probably have an issue that they think we might be able to help them with? Of course, most of us don’t have actual stores, but potential customers do “walk into our stores” by engaging in our marketing efforts, accepting a meeting with a sales person or walking into our trade show booth.

To add even more complexity to our task, buyers sometimes don’t know the specifics of what they need or how much it should cost. We have to educate them and help to identify their needs. When I walked into the mattress store this afternoon, I had not purchased a new mattress in more than 15 years. I had little idea how much I would need to spend to acquire an acceptable mattress. I had no knowledge of the wonders of a combined latex and memory foam bedding product. All I knew was that my current mattress is worn out and my back aches too many mornings when I wake up.

Sales and marketing are challenging professions. We win by our customers winning at every point along the sales and marketing path. I have always believed that if we do the right things, if we really care about our customers, if we work to keep focused on “them,” the money will follow. This has been the case in my career at least.