Open Mouth - Insert Foot
"Famous Last Words" are the last things a poor, clueless person says before suffering a tragic accident.
Here are a few of my favorites:
- "I wonder what this button does?...."
- "This food tastes funny...."
- "What could possibly go wrong?...."
- "I wonder where Mama Bear is?...."
 The king of this genre is a punchline to the joke. "What are the last words of a drunken Redneck?" Answer: "Hey Bubba, watch this!"
Sales has its own version of Famous Last Words. These are the immortal words uttered by clueless salespeople just before they get forcibly kicked out of an account.
"Do you have a project I can bid on?"
Nothing positions your company like a value-lacking bottom feeder  than a phrase like this. You might as well shout "I've got no ideas, I've got no solutions, and I don't know any best practices. Can I underbid somebody else who has done all the work?" "Let me know if we need to
sharpen our pencil."
In other words, we've deliberately overpriced our  solution in the hopes you were too lazy to shop around. If you still want to do business with us, let me know, and I'll provide the real price. "Can I e-mail you a proposal?"
Nothing beats e-mail if you want to avoid time-consuming face to face meetings. You also avoid those time-consuming questions, objections, and sales.
Losers, Misfits,  and Retreads love e-mailing quotes because they get to spend more time around the watercooler, grousing with each other about how bad the leads are. When it's commission time, "Your e-check is in the e-mail" "Who's the real decision maker?"
 | "Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate"
Thomas Jones |
Every sales book tells you to sell from the top down. That doesn't mean you need to insult the worker-bees along the way.
That young intern you bossed around and asked to fetch your coffee might be the boss's daughter.
The sad part is, I'm not making these lines up. I've heard every one of these grenades uttered by real salespeople, and with predictably bad results.
Each time you hear one of these groaners, imagine that you're really listening to another of the Famous Last Words, pictured below:
 | | "I Wonder What Will Happen if I Pull This Ring?" |
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