A few years ago, a youngster was employed to join (as a sales consultant) one of the companies (one of the leading multimedia companies in Nigeria today) I am consulting for in the city of Lagos. When I invited him to the office for an interview, I did tell him that he would need to join some field team-members for the next six months, so as to know inside-out what he wanted to sell to both their existing and new-fangled customers. To my chagrin, two days after following them to an event, he ran away! He wanted to be a Sales Consultant, but he did not want to ‘eat the candy’ of what the multimedia company has got to offer their teeming clients. In my many years of consulting for many companies—both within and outside of Nigeria, the picture I just painted has happened over and again, because eating your own dog food is not always pleasant. Once again, you cannot sell a mince-pie that you have never taken a bite of!
A variation of this principle is used at Micro-soft. In what is called “eating your own dog food,” Microsoft employees use test versions of all the products on a daily basis long before they came out. Windows marketers use new Operating Systems every day for months before they are finally ready for market. By using those Operating Windows, they would know them as they did know their fingers. This is where the amazing confidence, skill and out of this world knowledge to sell come from.
For the umpteenth time, eating your own dog food is not always amusing and pleasurable. When Microsoft rolled out their new E-mail system to tens of thousands of employees, there were delays, Computer crashes, lost mail, and lost productivity. In one glitch, the computer E-mail screen would freeze up for forty-five seconds and then go back to normal. If they did not eat the dog food of those products, they would not have been able to solve all the foreseeable frustrations that their existing and new customers would have encountered while using those new products.
Eat your own dog food, but do not believe your own press releases means use the product for yourself, rather than read about all its great features in a press release. See what it is really like to be a customer—and you can empathize with them—understand their needs and frustrations. Micro-softies use this experience to know the product that they are developing, testing, or selling inside and out. Over the years, this strategy has been working tremendously for Microsoft.
Once again, you cannot sell a product that you do not know inside and out. A few days ago, my family needed to get a new product, so I went to where I could get the original one. You know in our climes that original products are as scarce as diamond. You’d need to dig beyond the surface to get them!
As I was saying, I needed to get to where I could get it. On the inside of a showroom, I met with a salesgirl and after interacting with her for about eight minutes, it was evident that she did not know the product inside and out. She could not describe in details the capacity of the product I wanted to buy. As an effect of this, I left the show-room for another one. Being well-dressed is not enough to be a successful marketer, you must know what you are selling inside-out.
My experience over the years as a corporate trainer (and guide) has taught me never to accept to speak on a topic that I do not know—inside and out! Many years ago, I was invited by my media partner to be a part of an event in Lagos. It was a very beautiful event, but the professor—who was invited to speak on a topic did not know it inside and out as a man would know his newly-wedded wife. As an effect of him not knowing what he came to speak on, virtually everyone within his earshot did not buy into his jaded and monotonous presentation.
Everyone on earth is selling something either you are a preacher or a mechanic. And to become successful at whatever you are selling, you’d need to know intimately what you are selling as a man would know his own fingers. The confidence to sell as a megastar sales consultant comes from knowing what you have got to sell as Microsoft marketers would know their Operating Windows. This is one of the major secrets behind the globally recognized success of Microsoft Company and if it has been working for them, if well deployed, it will also work for you too, because principles are no respecter of persons.
This is where I am coming: what you cannot use for yourself, don’t sell it. If a message does not work for you as a preacher, there is no point preaching it to others. Never you recommend anybody, product and service to anyone (in both life and business) on the condition that you do not know them as you do know your fingers. This is what it means to eat your own dog food. Practice this principle and talk to me in the days to come on your outstanding success.
See you where successful people are found.
and then