Arnie Weissmann
In 1998, travel agency executive Al Hess wrote a very funny opinion column for Travel Weekly titled, "If airlines sold paint," which pointed out the absurdity of airline pricing. While a few of the rules and related tariffs that he pokes fun at have been modified or dropped, much of it remains relevant.
I was reminded of the story over the holidays. This year, people bought me pears. I received two boxes of them, and while unadorned pears are perfectly delicious, when you have dozens of them, you begin to look for options to keep them interesting. I came across a recipe for a simple appetizer that looked promising: pears and Stilton cheese over a gingersnap.
So, I went to my neighborhood cheese shop. What ensued was not the silliness of the famous Monty Python "Cheese Shop" sketch but part one of a two-part lesson in salesmanship.
The shop had two different Stiltons for sale. One was a third more costly. I asked the man behind the counter what the difference was.
He gave me a fairly technical explanation that centered mostly on the manufacturing processes. One process didn't seem particularly more impressive than the other. I bought the cheaper one.
Pears, Stilton and gingersnaps, it turns out, go really well together. We ran out of Stilton before running out of pears, so I returned to the cheese shop to get more. This time, a different person was behind the counter. Having watched him speaking with other customers, he seemed more knowledgeable and engaging than the first salesman, so I again asked what the difference was between the two Stiltons.
"The one on the left," he began, indicating the less expensive cheese, "is a very good Stilton. The one on the right is the best Stilton in the world."
How could I not ask for a taste of each? As I was sampling the less expensive one, he said, "Pretty good, right? A little manufactured-tasting, perhaps, but not bad."
He gave me the second one. As I popped it into my mouth, he said, "This one picks up where the other left off."
Perhaps it was only the power of suggestion, but it tasted noticeably better, and the texture, creamier.
Walking home, I thought that if I were in need of a salesperson, I'd try to hire the second cheese monger. And then I began to think about how I had chosen my first-ever travel advisor.
Decades ago, I had finally saved enough money to backpack around the world. Although I was an inexperienced traveler, I walked into, and out of, a dozen travel agencies before finding what I felt was the right one.
Most of the travel agents I met were like the first cheese salesperson: They were straightforward sources of travel information, but information that was as disconnected from the actual experience of traveling as the manufacturing of cheese is from tasting cheese.
The travel advisor I chose was very well-traveled and very opinionated. (Let me repeat: very opinionated.) "To get to Nairobi, you really have no choice but to fly Lufthansa," he said. "It's the only one that'll make you happy." He likewise made it clear that there was only one overland company he'd recommend for a trip across Africa. He expressed strong feelings about various hotel brands.
I felt I was in the hands of an expert. While the other advisors had provided me with facts so that I could make an informed decision, he gave me the feeling that he was protecting me from making the wrong decision.
In the end, my Lufthansa flight had to make an emergency landing because someone had phoned in a bomb threat. And by the end of the three-month overland trip, the driver of the overland truck and I disliked each other so intensely that we were no longer on speaking terms.
But I never blamed my travel advisor for anything that went wrong. It certainly wasn't his fault my flight was interrupted. And how could he know this particular driver was a jerk?
To try to better understand what the second cheese monger and my first travel advisor have in common, I looked at several websites on sales, including "Nine Types of Selling," "Seven Selling Styles" and "20 Different Types of Sales." (There must be another site somewhere titled, "Using Numbers on Homepages to Get Clicks.")
Sales styles I read about ranged from "inbound selling" and "social selling" to "conceptual selling" and "missionary selling."
But nowhere did I see a concise comparison of the differences between the first cheese salesman and the second. Both presented facts about Stilton, but the second was able to convey his expertise in four words -- "best in the world" -- and back them up.
Selling travel is obviously more complex than selling cheese. But I do wonder how many travel sales are lost by advisors who confuse knowledge of detail with expertise.