Shut up and Show Me

I'm a salesman, so I am notorious for talking a lot. Sometimes too much! I think this must be a problem for a lot of us (i.e. salesmen) because almost every sales seminar I have ever attended has a session on listening and I have yet to see one on talking. So what does the bass have to teach the salesman?

Sight is more important than sound. Bass are visual feeders. Why? Probably because there's so much background noise, and their hearing is limited. Keith A. Jones, PhD, author of Knowing Bass, discusses this in great detail. Essentially all of the background noise from boats, waves, and other marine inhabitants creates an environment that is not favorable for the bass to make feeding decisions based on hearing. Sound familiar? Think about all of the background noise we hear as consumers? Or all that our prospects must hear? We're bombarded every day with internet, TV and radio ads... telephone solicitations, and so on. It creates a lot of background noise, so prospects must make buying decisions based on something other than what they hear.

So show them what you got! Find a way to demonstrate your product or service, and you will likely increase your chance of getting the prospect to bite.

There's much debate among anglers about what, visually, is most important to bass: size, color, shape, motion, etc. To a degree we can have the same argument about our prospects. What's more important, this feature or that benefit? In a way, it really doesn't matter as long as we're showing them something. The advantage we have with humans is that, while showing them, we can ask them what is most important to them- this is when the afore mentioned listening comes into play... and if need be, we can show them exactly what they want/need.

Seeing is believing for bass and buyers, so quit talking and start showing!