TMI in Selling

Providing TMI (too much information) is an affliction from which many salespeople suffer. Giving TMI is worse than TLI (too little information).

Prospects don't want all the information you have. They only want the specific bits of information that applies to them, their needs, and their particular situation. Anything above and beyond that is TMI.

I experienced the TMI effect recently (and I was to blame for it) when I told a group of my buddies how I like to sit around the house in my underwear and watch TV on my days off. I told them sometimes I even leave out the underwear. Disgusted shouts of "TMI" wafted from the group.

I was just kidding about the whole thing (much to their relief) but it's clear that TMI has the potential to be a very damaging element in any interaction, and that includes a sales interaction. Control your urge to give too much information.

Here's a conversation I witnessed when I stopped at Bruegger's Bagels recently for lunch (note that Brueggers has recently started selling panini, which is made out of bread rather than bagels):

CUSTOMER: How much is a loaf of your bread?

BRUEGGER'S GUY: You know, we'd have to charge you so much that it wouldn't make sense.
CUSTOMER: I love your bread; can't I buy a loaf to take home?

BRUEGGER'S GUY: They haven't found out a way to price it so that it would be affordable. The way it is right now, I would need to charge you an immense amount because of how the sandwiches are priced, and so it would come out to some astronomical price like fifty dollars or something, and I'm sure you don't want to pay fifty dollars or more for a loaf of bread. We've been talking about the pricing and I know they're working on something but what I'd have to do is charge you for a sandwich but without the filling and stuff and multiply that by how many of slices there are in a loaf of bread. We get our bread from a supplier and we'd need to get better pricing if we were going to sell just the bread alone and not in a panini or sandwich. The way it is we have some problems with our supplier so I don't know if they would look for a different supplier or maybe something else because we don't bake the bread in our stores like we do the bagels. So I can't sell you a loaf of bread unless you want to pay like fifty dollars.

Most of Bruegger's Guy's words were wasted words. They didn't add value to the customer or strengthen the relationship between the customer and the vendor. All the Bruegger's Guy need to have said was, "I'm sorry, but we don't sell loaves of bread at this time, but feel free to check back again in case that changes."

Or better yet: "...if you want to leave me with your name and phone number or email, I'll let you know if we start selling loaves of bread."

Don't fall prey to the TMI effect!

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There are two free tickets being given away to the Art of Sales conference in Toronto on March 26, 2009. The conference features Jeffrey Gitomer and other presenters. For more information, go to Art of Sales.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

Comments

[Susa/Second Income Business]

Sometimes it can be difficult to tell whether yu are offering to much information or providing sufficient color to the story.