Peanut M&M's and the Art of the Deal

I find it is helpful to have a few bags of Peanut M&M's in the booth. Usually just about everyone comes up and opens a pack and has to stop and eat for at least ten to fifteen seconds. And while they are eating, bingo, their mouth is closed, just the time to ask a few casual questions.

You don't want to come out and say, "Is your 'S' trap leaking? Not exactly what you want to ask someone when he has a mouthful of M&M's. Potential clients are like marble. You want to selectively start to find where you want to carve. Where you want to make the precise first tap with your hammer. You don't just want to pound with a mallet. Slowly but surely you build rapport.

"How is that chocolate? I kinda like the ones with nuts myself. Didn't care too much when they started adding all of those purple and blue ones. Do you like dark chocolate better than milk chocolate? I can get that next time if you'd like." Right there in that sentence or two, you learn if the client likes added extras-the nuts. You learn whether they like things changing or staying the same-when they added a bunch of colors to M&M's. You learn whether they have sophisticated taste-dark or milk chocolate. You also let them know that you will be a customer servant by letting them know that you will get dark chocolate if they prefer it to milk chocolate. You can learn a lot about sales from a bag of M&M's. It sure beats coming out and beating someone over the head by talking about busted pipes and "S" traps.

Andy Fletcher's career as an artist started early. He began drawing trains-one of his first loves-from his own photos when he was still in school. In 1992, Burlington Northern Railroad asked him to design their popular SD70MAC Executive color scheme. Altogether, Andy has drawn over a thousand trains, from steam to modern diesel and cars, cabooses and other equipment. He has been commissioned to paint trains for many of the railroad historical societies and museums.

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