The fat lady has sung for Dr. Karl Moore

Dr. Moore, I had you all wrong. Seems I mistook you for a highbrow academic who had never sold a thing in his life (other than the good people at Marketing on your life-of-a-sales-call trilogy). But buried in the grand finale is the telling comment: "A mistake I often made early in my sales career was to interrupt a customer early in their question". So with a couple of mouse clicks , I discover that prior to joining academia, Dr. Moore worked 12 years in sales and marketing management positions with IBM, Bull and Hitachi. I seriously wonder how many weeks were actually in sales.

Despite his pedigree, this Dr. Moore has managed to produce a totally lame paint-by-numbers series on selling. In this final instalment, "It ain't over 'til it's over" we are told that we should appreciate buyer objections and should respond to them. (Personally, I like to respond by crying profusely in the hope of generating a sympathy sale -- I call this technique the "wail close". Really quite effective.). He then suggests we close by asking for the sale. Apparently they expect us to do that the same way you expect to be asked to remove your shirt by your physician. Dr. Moore does not tell us whether to say "pretty please with a cherry on top" or when to negotiate or how we could add value to the buy with some customized proposals… In fact he tells us nothing of any interest or value. But he does slyly suggest that, because once the sale is made the buyer will likely feel suckered in by our newly-slick approach ("buyer blues" he calls it), we should take them to lunch and reassure them that it's all going to be okay.

I'm going to miss him and his witty column.