The interviews

12 Interviews

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Questions to answer in terms of performing effective negotiations

• What did you do?
• I listened to the potential buyers more than I talked.  I just asked a few questions to know who they were, what were their main hobbies, where they liked to hang out, if they were interested in any sports etc.  I tried to avoid to talk about Fabulyzer at first.  Around the middle/end of the conversation I introduced Fabulyzer, after knowing the potential customer's pain (if possible/applicable).
• What did you not do?
• I did not start talking about Fabulyzer at first, because they would take me for a sales person and they would go away.  If a ''potential buyer'' would refuse me to talk to him about Fabulyzer, I wouldn't push and push and try to convince him to buy the device.
• What did you want to do in the exercise but failed?
• I really wanted to get to the point where I could talk about Fabulyzer and try to get some signatures, but for some of the people that I interviewed, it would just be impossible because they were not interested in this product.
• What did you most enjoy? Why?
• I enjoyed the interview part, because it was a big challenge for me and for most of the students to go outside their comfort zone, and talk to strangers, with the goal of obtaining intents to buy.
• What will you do/not do next time?
• Next time, I'll ask very simple questions just to know a bit more the customer, I'll let him talk and in my head, I'll take notes about what he says, what he needs, his pain etc.  I won't push too much to avoid putting pressure on the customer.
• What does any of the above tell you about your negotiating style?
• I am a very patient man.  I know how to listen to the customers, and to understand what they need.  I already worked as a sales person for different companies, and in the most cases when people buy, it is because they feel a connection between the sales person and them.  Talking about their lives, making them laugh and having patience are the key to success.
• How has your team performed? How as your team hundred or helped you?
• My team performed pretty well as well.  Everyone did their part.  It was not easy sometimes to approach the potential buyers, but at the end we had good results.  We all helped each other by giving feedback to our pairs, about both the negative and the positive aspects of the work.
• How have the resources you have brought to the blog been valuable in terms of learning to become a better negotiator?
• I can see my strengths and my weaknesses, and also the feedback of my pairs will help me become a better negotiator.  The fact that my classmates can see what I post and can comment on it and give me some FEEDBACK, will help me through it.
• How has the feedback from your peers and team members improved your performance and preparation for negotiation?
• As I said previously, their feedback helped me to correct my main weaknesses, so for the next negotiation, I would know what to do and what to not do.  It was a very constructive way to improve myself for sales negotiation.

Reflexion about Yvette's interview

For the last potential customer interview, I was the one who was in charge to film Yvette while she was interviewing the potential customer.  It's crazy to see that Yvette, the very quiet student, could do such a nice job!  Because of her, we obtained 2 signatures : the interviewed girl and her friend.

We first got out of the school without really knowing where we were going with this interview.  We had the idea to stay in the school area, because there are a lot of students in this neighbourhood and we did not have that much time.  We started walking, walking walking, for at least 15-20 minutes.  We had no idea what to do because the first few people we approached didn't really want to talk to us.  Then we saw that mexican girl, and started talking to her.  All the nervousness went away.  We had a very good interview, with nice results.

I think Yvette did a very nice job with this interview.  However, there are some points to improve for the next interview, if ever there is one.  I think at first she was a bit shy, either because of the fact that I had to film her, or because she was shy to talk to a stranger.  After a few minutes of recording, everything was alright.  I also think that next time, she should make the interview shorter, because not everyone has a lot free time and can answer during 10 minutes to an interview.  They got off topic at a few moments, which is great because we had the chance to learn even more about the potential customer.

On the other hand, I think that the fact that the potential customer was a spanish speaker, Yvette felt more confident and relaxed.  They spoke about a lot of things before talking about the main topic which was the intent to buy the Fabulyzer device.  We learned a lot about the girl's habits, about what she thinks about sports, about her free time etc.  It was a very nice experience for both of us, because even if I didn't have the chance to conduct an interview at this moment, I at least could film the scene and tell myself : OK, she's doing this and that wrong etc, and then, for my next interview, I will know what to do and what to avoid.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Hi everyone,

I'm going to try to explain to you all my experience, struggles and what I learnt out of all that.

At first, when we started the course, I thought that doing survey in "the real world" would be as easy as doing role play in class. I quickly found out that the previous experience I had would be almost useless.

First of all, people in the streets (or on-line) don't want to spend time with a stranger and answer him questions about a topic they might not care about. The questions have to be quick, understandable and precise. Nobody wants to answer vague questions and if they do their answer would be as useless as the questions.

The first step for me was to behave as if I was the customer and think about what kind of question I would like to answer or, which is more important, would create interest in me.

The second step was to work on my introduction. I found out that a punchline and a great smile were the best "weapons" to start an interview a be able to ask my questions.

The first interview were long and stressful but once I started to be more confident about the content of what I was asking, I quickly felt better and since then I had better answer and better results.

Besides that another difficulty was to work with a product and a sector that I  didn't perfectly knew and mastered since the begging.

These are the main line of my experience during this course.

Lucas Martinez