Some Blog Site

There is an ad running on the radio stations around here. I don’t know if it’s national or not, but it is for La Quinta Inns.

The ad sounds something like this:

Normal Announcer:When salesman Rob Taylor stays at La Quinta Inn, he is well-rested. And when he’s well-rested, you know what he does?
Baseball Announcer:And here’s the sales pitch…
Sound of bat hitting a ball: Thwack!
Normal Announcer:He knocks it out of the park!

It’s good they kept the cliches consistent in that the ad is all baseball, but now I have questions about the purpose of the sales pitch.

Logic of the Analogy:
If a sales pitch is analogous to a baseball pitch, then the salesman is the pitcher.
If Rob Taylor is the pitcher, then he is not batting.
Thus, he cannot hit it out of the park.
Ergo, his customer must have hit the sale out of the park.

Questions:

• Is it good or bad that the customer hit it out of the park?
• What does it mean if the customer gets a good hit on your sales pitch?
• Is a sales pitcher’s job to throw strikes? And get the customer to swing and miss?

Normally, a pitcher is trying for strikes, meaning that the batter does not hit the ball. Certainly, you don’t want your customer to strike out. Then he goes away and you have to find a new customer.

Maybe a sales pitcher’s job more like coach-pitch youth baseball, where the pitcher is supposed to gently toss the ball to give the batter the best chance for a hit.

But then the salesman isn’t being fair to his own company; he needs his employer to make money off the deal too.

Conclusion:
I don’t know what to make of this. You don’t want the customer striking out and you don’t want the batter hitting home runs. There is no good result of a sales pitch.

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