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Red Sox fans are getting a fairly positive impression of starting pitcher Julian Tavarez. It turns out that he’s a free spirit, hanging out and having fun in the dugout with superstars Manny Ramirez and Daisuke Matsusaka. He’s pitching well and Red Sox fans are quite happy to have him on their team. He’s always talking, laughing and having fun and seems like a great guy to have on the team. But it wasn’t always like this.

Last week I received an email from a salesperson who attempted to get me interested in her web site development services by telling me that there were both major and minor problems with two of my web sites.

This may seem like a rant about nothing but I happen to think it’s a big deal. I think most salespeople do a horrible job at saying hello to their prospects, customers and clients.

Last night my wife and I attended “The Drowsy Chaperone”, a musical comedy from which I can provide a strong lesson for salespeople. The show starts off with the “man in the chair” saying something like, “I know, you hope the show will be good” and “you probably hope it doesn’t run too long” and “you hope it’s going to be funny”.

Here’s a real email thread. The names of the client and the prospect have been changed. I was the salesperson. I have reorganized the sequence so that you can start at the top and scroll down. I added my comments in red.

My team and I train and coach a lot of salespeople and sales managers. Lately, there is no mistaking the two most popular requests for help.