Each week, we bring you the most cringe-worthy sales moments from across the web. To submit your sales fail story for consideration,
I took my clients to a showing for a beautiful $3.5m home — they were a doctor/publicist power couple. This was, at the time, the most expensive I’d ever shown. The showing was going well enough, and they seemed interested in the house, and were asking questions. I took them out to the backyard, which was gorgeous. It had an infinity pool with an amazing view of the woods, a full outdoor kitchen, and a sleek fire pit area. I was really in the zone showing them around and wasn't paying attention to where I was walking. I fell into the pool....in my brand new suit... while the couple laughed hysterically. I was so embarrassed. I was just standing there in the pool and blurted out "would you care to test out the pool as well?" They started laughing even harder. I climbed out, grabbed a towel, and wrapped up the showing. They ended up putting in an offer a week later and (after a lot of other issues) bought the house.
Anonymous Location withheld
—
I was an Account Manager in staffing and recruiting a few years back. I was cold-calling people at some of my targets using the phone numbers in my CRM to speed things up. I called a new prospect and someone picked up after a few rings. I asked to speak with my target and the woman on the phone said that she was his mother. Embarrassed, I tried to end the conversation and promised to update the number in my system. This mother was persistent because she thought I was a head hunter going after her son. She told me all about his talents and why he would be a great fit for a new role. I tried to explain that this wasn't part of my job but she wouldn't listen. When I finally hung up, I immediately took the number out of my CRM.
A couple of months later, I reached out to this prospect on LinkedIn asking for an introduction. He responded and told me he knew my name because his mom had told him about our conversation. He scolded me for calling his family (fair) and said he'd never dealt with this level of unprofessionalism. Needless to say, I didn't get that lunch. I learned my lesson and now always double-check phone numbers before cold calling.
Anonymous Location withheld
—
My coworker and I were sharing stories from the craziest sales calls we've ever been on. He was telling me about when he was just starting out selling kitchen knives door-to-door.
He was in the kitchen of a young couple's house going through his typical demonstration. The couple was impressed and started giving him stuff they had laying around to cut. They gave him a mango, which is particularly slippery and tricky to cut around the seed. The guy ended up slicing his finger open and started bleeding all over their kitchen counter. The couple panicked to help and gave him a dish towel to try and stop the bleeding but it was pretty bad. He ended up just leaving and drove himself to the emergency room with their dish towel wrapped around his hand. He had to get stitches. He started looking for new jobs the next day and retired from selling kitchen knives a month later.
Anonymous Location withheld
