Your Most Popular Product

How glam. I was in the English Midlands town of Coventry the other day. Cov, to its friends. And there’s a huge Ikea in the centre. I popped in to the cafe and had one of my new faves, a lingonberry juice.

Knowing the food area is pretty good, I wandered around to grab something a bit different.

I asked the young man behind the counter what their most popular item was.

This is a question I often ask solution salespeople.

I picked up on this trick when helping salesteams that sold thousands of products to hundreds of customers. Stationers, car parts, computer consumables, building materials.

The odds are heavily in stacked in favour of no-one being able to accurately pinpoint their number one.

On the rare occasion someone guessed right, a second question on a particular product group, or profitability rather than raw sales, exposed the knowledge gap.

So, I was testing the Ikea server a touch.

His response was instant.

the meatballs,

we have to fill up the freezer two or three times every day

If a retail assistant at a Swedish mega global monster can know this, then why can’t every b2b salesperson?

Do you know your best-selling items across the boards?

As an aside, there’s another question famous for catching the novice or sub-standard rep off guard.

It’s what you say when a prospect asks you what your favourite product is.

Most will wax lyrical about one. Typically one they want the buyer to buy.

Yet that is the wrong response.

Hardened wisdom is to reply that your products are like children. Impossible to have a favourite. What’s important, is what’s best for you, mister customer…

Lovely.