Ottoman Selling and Negotiation Etiquette Calling to prayer - calling to business 2015

The fading echoes of Bargaining, Ottoman Style

Gateway entrance/exit from the Topkapi
 Palace with the Blue Mosque
in the distance

The intricate etiquette of the Ottoman Empire lingers in many day-to-day rituals still observed in its greatest creation Istanbul.

I have just returned from Istanbul after conducting a couple of Sales Skills courses for Grads from across the world.

View from a Topkapi Palace balcony
of the Bosporus and Asia !

There was some free time to tourist and I joined the group in a visit to the Topkapi Palace. Spring sunlight and the fresh green leaves of the trees made a lovely time of year to visit this, the busiest of modern cities.

Visiting the souvenir shops you can still pick up the courteous approach of selling Turkish style. 

They honour a guest visiting their country. They make you feel at home, accommodate and help you and show off their famous hospitality.

If you keep the following etiquette and customs rules in mind, you will not only show a token of appreciation, Turks will respect you even more.

Until recently, the art of bargaining was one of these but the days the non-negotiable price-tag reigns supreme in most of the city’s retail outlets.

Here as in many stops along the Silk route, the days of camel caravans have long gone, supplanted by multinational retailers, lean ( LEAN) supply-chain management and in an increasingly homogeneous shopping experience. 

Much  changed in the foundation of Modern Turkey with Mustafa Kemal Attaturk, first President of Turkey whose birthday I discover, I share today!

Certain aspects of  the enclosed life of the Sultans is preserved in the museum of Topkapi with its spectacular Treasury of jewels - well worth a visit- an age away and lovely buildings. Yet you are aware you in a special place. None more obviously than when you hear the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer- a little of which I was able to record in the video above.

The calls from the Blue Mosque are then picked up minaret to minaret across the city. 

Perhaps the last echoes of Ottoman style bargaining can be found in the city’s carpet shops particularly those in the Grand Bazaar calling prospects to try before you buy.
 Many of these still take pride in their ancient art of bargaining.

Aleksandr Meerkat keeps watch over
 Mr. Hugh's Turkish black tea
in its traditional tulip shaped glass

Some tips from a tourist guide suggests:-

•          The official prices here have always been artificially inflated to allow for a bargaining margin 20% -30% is the rule of thumb.    

Shopping here involve many aspects of Ottoman etiquette – you will drink tea, exchange polite greetings and sign up how trustworthy the shop keeper is. He in turn will drink tea and exchange polite greetings and size up how gullible you are.

•          Never feel pressurised to buy something. Tea and polite conversation are gratis- if you accept them- you don’t need to buy anything in exchange.( Western social economic rules of reciprocity are not overtly expected) It is important to do your research. Always shop around compare quality or pricing.

•          Before starting to haggle, decide how much you like a carpet or rug and how much you are prepared to pay for it It i important you stick to this ! – the shopkeepers here are professional bargainers and have loads of practise in talking customers into purchases against their better judgement.

•          Your first offer should be around 60% of the initial asking price. The shopkeeper may laugh, feign offence or profess to be puzzled.- this is all part of the ritual.

•          He will then make a counter offer 80-90% - You should look disappointed, explain your have done your research and say you are not prepared to pay that amount. Then you should offer around 70%.

•          By this stage you and the shopkeeper should have eyed each other up. He will cite the price at which he is prepared to sell- if it corresponds with what you were initially happy to pay- you can agree the deal.

 If not you smile shake hands and walk away. 

Let me sign off with the great mystic and poet Rumi ( who died in Konya, Turkey)  on generating the fruits of success

“Water the fruit trees and don’t water the thorns.” 

Related Links

Courting Clients Business Etiquette Handshakes Business Cards

Sales Space Invaders #PersonalSpace

When meeting any customer or business contact, it is critical to let them set a comfortable personal space.

If the buyer 's tendency is to move in close or stay removed physically and  doesn't correspond to your own personal space preference, recognise the fact that you’re not going to be operating in your comfort zone.

You can become more accustomed to different comfort zones by practising :

Ben walks towards Ben N, Katey observes

Delegates can learn about this if paired up  and stand about 6 feet away from each other.

Pair them up getting one partner  to stand still whilst the other starts walking toward the one standing still.  It is useful to lay out a measuring tape on the floor

When the one standing still feels their slow walking pair colleague is getting uncomfortably close, they ask him or her to stop / raise their hand in front of them. An observer can see the slight flits that the eyes do in the fight or fight response

By making a note of the the approximate distance between their feet they can identify  the still stander’s  comfort zone.

Pav and Janie identifying when they encroach
 on their personal space preferences

Then they can continue slowly  forward, encroaching on the still stander’s personal space.

It is worth noting how uncomfortable this feels,  and recognise that when you invade someone else's personal space,  (s)he feels the same discomfort.  It teaches you to develop a sensitivity to not encroach on a client’s personal space.

Invading a customer’s personal space almost guarantees they won’t feel at ease with you.

 Standing too far away is less  problematic, but it still won’t put them in the mood to buy.

 Pay attention to your customer's cues for face-to-face interaction.

This is worth being  aware of in situations such as face to face meetings, networking events, corporate hospitality gatherings  and working an exhibition stand.

Richard and Ngatia prepare to find
 out their personal space preferences
Tape on the floor

Proxemics  Personal Space

Intimate;  46 cm

Personal  46cm -1.2 m

Social   1.2m – 2.4 m

Public   2.4m +


Training Tip :-

For many active and pragmatic learners  the above data is rather abstract.

 A fun way to help delegates engage with the subject is to observe 'fight or flight' eye shifts.

I usually divide a course into trios and give each group a measuring tape. 

They lay the tape on the floor. 

One delegate stands still. 

Another walks to word their colleague very slowly ( half slow march speed) whilst the third member of the group observers the eye shift. 

They then record the distance of the personal proxemics .

Amy looks for Marc's fight or flight response as Shane walks
 slowly through March Personal Space zones

Marc walks towards Amy - whilst Paul looks on

Some extra facts and figures

Six universal visual signals

Happy, Sad, Surprise, Disgust, Anger, Fear

What information do people remember?

10%                20%                80%   

Oral                 Visual             Oral and Visual

How do we take in the world around us ?

82%                11%                7%

Eyes               Ears                Other senses

Humans can produce

Over 700,000 signs

Over 250,000 facial expressions

Over 1000 postures

Over 5,000 distinct hand gestures

It takes 7 seconds to make a judgement about a person when first meeting them

Related Links


Body language in a business related context



Antigone King Creon Non verbal communication master class


Lessons on Words Music and Dance from the Circus Ronaldo

Why do Salespeople overstate, inflate, embroider embellish, blown up their claims and are expected to be larger than life ? Ethics and morals in Selling.

Today in the UK we have our General Election where we vote for our local member of Parliament.

We have to exercise some discernment on all the claims and counter claims that the parties have communicated on the doorsteps, the  Press ,TV and Radio and social media.

We love to have a good old moan at and criticise our political representatives . The opinion polls say the result is too close to call and that another coalition is on the horizon. 

There have been some exaggerations stated from pressurised politicians during the electioneering period but before we finger point the political candidates perhaps we should look at ourselves today as well.

Interval Curtain at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden's
 production of Donnizette's L’elisir d’amore 
The Elixir of Life where  the travelling medicine salesman is one,
Dr Dulcamara played by the  Bryn Terfel

Are we prone to exaggeration?

 Have you ever exaggerated a product’s strengths? 

Have you ever underplayed a product’s weakness?

Is everything in your CV or LinkedIn profile  totally true?

 Was that trip adviser critique you wrote in anger just a little overstated? 

 Was the track record of the new product you are selling a little embroidered? 

Was your sales forecast just a bit overstated or understated? 

Were the reasons you gave for losing the sales just a little more blown up ( cheaper competition, delivery etc) than was really justified ?

Of course  we salespeople are not alone in all this.

The distinguished former civil servant  Lord Thomas Armstrong was ‘economic with the truth’ in the 1987 Spycatcher trial. Politicians are economic with the ‘realité ‘ as Alan Clark one said. I dear say some premier football managers did seen the foul committed by one of their players but when after the match asked deny seeing the incident and dear I say,

buyers can be liars as a negotiation ploy.

It is perhaps useful for us to consider why this may be.

Earlier this year ,the American  journalist/ anchor   Brian Williams was suspended for six months without pay from the Nightly News for "misrepresent[ing] events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003.

I came across an article in Portico magazine by journalist Jack Shafer on the Brian Williams story. It stopped me in my tracks and I would like to share it with you

“Williams’ insistence on playing for laughs—and his talent at garnering them—points to the compulsive desire to please often seen in the behaviours of salesmen, teachers, confidence men and political candidates.

 As long as the comedian has the crowd chuckling, he can sell them something, teach them something, pick their pocket or otherwise bamboozle them.

 The comic arts should not be banned from journalism—God forbid that should happen!

 But journalists who work overtime on entertaining you or making you laugh deserve your suspicion. In journalism, the story is supposed to be king. That doesn’t mean the cleverness or emotive writing has no place, only that the narrow bandwidth comedy offers can carry only so much journalistic information”

In sales I also think we should be wary where our cleverness and emotive descriptions which can take us beyond our bandwidth of trust with clients. Wise buyers know that we are prone to such exaggerations.

In this era of the industrial Internet of things IIoT, more is recorded of our claims as salespeople in social media, videoed presentations, recorded conference calls, emails and their attachments etc.

We  in the future IIoT era,may well  be exposed to the equivalent video clips of Mr Williams’ reports from 2005 that have now gone viral.

 Of course like journalism, selling should not be just be all ‘worthy’ vegetables. Buyers want meat in our presentations to them also.

However if our entertaining embellishment values outbalance our trust values  with clients business suffers.

Of course customers have their part to play in  making “reasonable demands”

An analogy  in this current UK election ( and many past elections).

Claims and counter claims of the main political parties in solving the country’s deficit through Harnack ( austerity) or  their opposite post- Keynsian economic principles cannot be reasonably be achieved in a short electoral period of five years.

 We as voters ( the consumers in this case) perhaps need to have  reasonable rather than overstated demands on politicians .

Come what may, salespeople up and down the country will play their part in the success of the country  following this election,whether acknowledged by politicians , electorate or not.

But maybe we should keep the embellishments under control a bit more.

Good Selling

Selling Fear Uncertainty and Doubt lessons from #election2015

Years ago I sang for the Royal Choral Society. In those days they sang the National Anthem " God save the Queen" and usually three verses at every concert.

 Some lines of verse two have a certain pertinence  and even irony right now on the final day of electioneering for the 2015 UK General election

".......Confound their politics 

Frustrate their knavish tricks 

On thee our hopes we fix

God save us all "

The final FEAR bombardments of the 2015 General election have included :-

Labour's warning of "swingeing cuts" to hospital budgets under the Tories.

The Deputy Prime Minister warns us from “BLUKIP – a bloc of right wingers from UKIP, the Conservatives and the DUP that could hold the balance of power. And “ lend us your vote and we can stop the SNP winning in your constituency.

"The Prime Minister saying a SNP-backed Labour government was a "chilling prospect".

On the final day before the May 7th  2015 UK  General election,we see the final shots of Negative campaigning by the political parties in their Attack ads, Fear-Mongering, Push Polls , Smear campaigns, and Voter suppression. 

Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) is a tactic used in sales, marketing and public relations but perhaps with a lighter touch than political electioneering propaganda.

People are always afraid of the unknown. If one brand has no product today, they'll suggest  or imply shortcomings about a competitor’s product as part of a FUD campaign to delay potential customers from buying the competitor's product until theirs hits the market. Smart phone upgrade launches come to mind.  e.g. Apple I phone versus Sony Galaxy etc.

FUD in Marketing

Marketing is what companies do to get you interested in their products. In marketing, one company will pull a subtle trick to make you doubt other brands. This is one kind of FUD.

FUD in Sales

Sales is the act of persuasive communication against resistance. It's personal and completely different from marketing, which is  about drumming up general interest.

Salespeople may employ  FUD to get you to buy from them, or not to buy from a competitor.

In selling it is probably better to use avoid such motivators, or only employ them with care and  with a far softer touch. Rubbishing competitors has the danger of drawing a buyer's attention to your competitor.

Better to have an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove rather than the other way round !

In Sales , our election is every call  , every day . Even  in fixed contracts our offer is daily tested. 

Whatever you decide and for whomever you vote for -Good selling and good luck in frustrating your competition's 'knavish tricks'.


Related Links

Closing your Sale

Name Calling in Selling #BrandCharlotte - the Business in names

Q: What’s in a name ?

A: An extra 15% margin

The fourth in line to the throne  Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte (Elizabeth Diana ) of Cambridge was introduced to the world from Kensington Palace on the afternoon of the public holiday Monday 4^th May 2015.   

Unlike the 'name calling' that has been exchanged between the protagonists during the UK general election with only 2 days to go people have enjoyed the happy news of the announcement of Princess Charlotte. Yet her name is already receiving abbreviations such as Lottie , Charlie etc.

Naming is an action ownership. By assigning a name to something or somebody we make a claim. The princess has been given names that draw on family and royal legacy. Charlotte was the name of King George III's wife, Elizabeth is the name of her great grandmother and Diana -Prince William's late mother.

Even before the princess was born people were betting on her name. Pizza Hut were offering a free pizza if your name was Charlotte. Whatever the future holds for her she is likely to become a role model , an icon etc. The popularity of the name of Charlotte will increase as future parents think of names for their own little princesses ! No doubt copy children's clothes will follow in the baby wear shops pretty soon. 

So it is with Commercial naming whether corporate branding or Product / Service branding.

Here are some issues to consider when naming and referring to our corporate children - our PRODUCTS

The name strategically distinguish the product from its competitors by conveying its unique positioning

The name holds appeal for the product’s target audience

The name infers or calls to mind a significant brand attribute, quality or benefit.

The name is available for legal protection and "trademark".

The name allows companies to bond with their customers to create loyalty.

The name has a symbolic association that fortifies the image of a company or a product to the consumers.

The name helps motivate customers to buy the product.

The name can be legally acquired and developed.

Whatever the future holds for our Princess Charlotte or own precious little princesses human or corporate, I wish you good selling.

Related Links:-

Branding renewal

Branding and Logos

Pros and Cons of Brand extension

Trust gained through your brand

Biscuit occasions through rebranding

Sales Literature and Manifesto Campaign Leaflets any lessons from #election2015

The first sale you make is not to a customer but to yourself.

If you don’t believe in yourself , your products and services it is unlikely that you will persuade others.

This is not just a matter of positive thinking or fake motivation.

 Like them or loathe them the folk who stand for elections have got courage to “stand for election”. 

 You may never stand for Parliament or local council but perhaps you may stand for your parish council , sports club, a committee of some sort. In some senses we  all have to sell ourselves each day.

You need courage in selling yourself.

What would make up your manifesto as a Sales Professional to your customers who vote  for you with the orders they place or with the influence  they bear on your behalf when buying into Brand You?

Maybe you are sick to the back teeth of the political leaflets that have been posted through your door but just before you chuck them in your waste paper bin why not take a look at see what you think works and does not work simply from the point of view as a piece of sales communication.

·         Does it attract attention?
·         Would it interest the swing/ undecided voter?
·         Does it explain what the candidate stands for ?
·         Does it appeal to both the heart and head ?  Does it persuade ?
·         Does it engage with the reader?
·         Does it call for action?

And here is an exercise for you. Maybe an idea for a session at your next sales team meeting

Take a piece of A 4 paper and design a mock up of your Sales Manifesto for Brand You

Writing an election manifesto that sells YOU. It needn't be something to tear your hair out about. This is a playful exercise.

Essentially, your selling manifesto should state what you would plan to do in your role as sales person, and what improvement you  would make for your customers.

It isn't an excuse to rubbish your competition, or make unrealistic promises and claims. 

Take some time before you write it to think about what you believe you can achieve and what the voters ( the buyers and influencers you sell to)  would respond to.

Here are some  tips for writing your sales  manifesto:

Be concise and use clear language. Avoid long, complicated words – you won’t win awards for being clever and you might just alienate important voters.

If you are using  word processing software E use an easy to read font, (like Arial or Times New Roman); text should not be smaller than font size 12.

Set out your goals for your time in the selling role and ensure they are realistic and achievable – sales professionals are answerable to both your employer and customers.

 Your manifesto is about you and not about your competition. 


Avoid discrediting and disrespecting others as it is not professional !

Be relevant.

However, instances where you have shown leadership, tenacity, and tact would indicate to  customer voters your suitability for the role.

Keep  the text to a maximum  of 500 words.

Be creative and inspiring.

Once you have drafted your manifesto, you can run it past a work colleague – a fellow member of the sales team

Your own manifesto may encompass some visuals  or may simply be a summary or a reference document you might leave with your client.

It can act as an

• explanation of what your product is or does

• proof that it works and is effective and relevant to your client

• motivation of your prospect to want it after seeing it in action or using it

• trial/practise in advance somewhere where mistakes do not matter

Why bother to do this?

Well, it will help you give a coherent and confident answer whenever you are challenged with

Prospect :“Your products and you competitor’s are much the same , WHY SHOULD I BY FROM YOU ? "

Good Luck ! Good electioneering for Brand YOU

Of course you may wish to inscribe  your pledges on a block of Limestone and place it in your garden but a folded sheet of A4 with your manifesto  pledges is sufficient.

Related Links:

What does your offer mean to them ?


How to Sell Trust

May Bank Holiday 2015 Fundraising in action in Farnham

Supported  by @farnhamherald   The 28^th Great Farnham Duck Race Organised by Farnham Weyside Rotary Club  Photos of the preparations for the race. The finishing line trap being set up. The various stalls and links to the charities at the event

http://www.shelterbox.org/

http://www.pth.org.uk/

Real ducks away from their normal home whilst
the plastic interlopers do their charity races 

 

Traditional Stalls

https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/donate

https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/donate

https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/donate

http://www.stepbystep.org.uk/4/get-involved/18/make-a-donation/233/ways-you-can-donate/ 

http://www.farnham-assist.org.uk/

http://www.farnham-assist.org.uk/

Hoopla  (  the special wooden  plinths for the prizes -nice touch)