First and foremost - does your company have guidelines here? Unless you have a very small startup, I'd expect that your company should have pretty clear guidelines for how to present a sales pitch. It's a very public facing task, and how you do it has a huge impact on your business, I'm surprised, actually, that on a first pitch you weren't accompanying another, more experienced, employee and acting more as an observer.
Second - I'm with a few of the other respondents - I don't see harm in asking why. I would be careful to focus the question a bit - "are there gaps in the product we could address?", "can you tell me your concerns?", etc. If you have reason to suspect that the issue is you, specifically, then you may want another member of your company doing the followup, so the customer can be more frank. Realize, however, that they don't really owe you feedback, so you won't necessarily get it - anything you get is a bonus, and it takes serious judgement to figure out what advice to take and what to ignore.
To answer questions specifically:
1.Do they dislike me as a person? How do I find that one out? At first one of the employees had a "omg who is that, how do I endure the next hour"-look on his face.
You'll never know. Seriously. If being liked is critical to your happiness on a job, I suspect a sales role is not for you. No matter what you sell or who you are, someone will dislike you simply because you are trying to sell them something and they don't like salespeople.
The question to ask here is - "does them not liking you personally matter?" and "did you do anything to make yourself personally unlikeable?". If you walked into the office swearing and screaming racial epithets, then that's the behavior to correct. But if you managed to be basically polite and respectful, then what they think personally about you isn't your concern.
2.Do they not respect me as a person because I do not have the educational background they have?
Maybe. For the most part, people respond more positively to people who are "like" them. Whatever the correlation is - education, race, gender, sexual orientation, hobbies, country or state of origin - people tend to bond more easily the more they have in common. That's not to say you can't overcome it, but it'll always be easier to sell to people who are more like you, and you'll have the challenge of establishing repore with people who are unlike you.
That doesn't necessarily mean faking that you have an educational background you don't have. It just means finding a common background. For example, as a defense contractor, I could never imitate the qualities of someone who's actually been in the military, but I have a deep respect for military service, and the respect and clear appreciation of my country often got me a long way when working with service people who don't share many experiences with me.
3.Do they not like my product(it was an idea that should be developed further with them) because it is flawed in some aspects?
Very much a question worth asking. I've had sales people come out and ask me why and I don't usually mind being clear. Keep in mind that most people are willing to invest about 3 sentences in what's wrong with your product and then they are done, unless your product is unique and they see a clear use for it that they can't find any other solution for. After all, they don't have any investment in your product.
4.Were they annoyed cause I wasn't besuited as they were? Do I have to be besuited to work as a partner not an employee? I always think: "If Mark Zuckerberg can go to public meetings with sandals, why shouldn't I go to those meetings with a simple skirt or t-shirt". I was wearing a T-Shirt
I would suggest that using the pre-eminent example for outlier personalities in modern social media products may not be the key to success. Mark Zuckerberg is a phenomena, not a common stereotype, and he's gathered as many enemies for his personal style as friends.
I've met a few folks who are so outstandingly brilliant that they could pull of the very-dressed-down mode of dress. They have to be very, very brilliant, very, very innovative, and very, very aggressive. The product has to be oustanding, and it has to do a job that literally NOTHING else does and it has to stand up to the harsh scrutiny I will give it.
If you have doubts that you can do all of the above, I'd suggest that you consider that the reason that most sales reps dress somewhat similar to (if not better than) the folks they sell to is that they recognize that being dressed formally is an old school power play. It shows respect - both for yourself, and for the people you are visiting. I know of no one who thinks a suit is a comfortable garment - at best it looks nice when it's well fitted and nicely pressed. Some people will take lack of suit or business casual dress to be a sign of disrepect or lack of seriousness.
5.At first he was asking for my educational background. I thought to myself: "What does this have to do with me presenting a product?" but I told him. Well dropping out of college does not seem to have pleased him.
Honestly, I've never asked a sales rep his background. But then, I've never been faced with a first time sales rep who had as little training as you've had in the field. The folks I talk to have typically been doing it for years, and it's not unusual for me to meet with herds of sales folks where one is charge, some level of technical expertise is present and there's an assistant who's going just to learn the lay of the land and establish the contact. Cold call, 1-on-1 sales is probably the hardest, most rejection filled side of the industry.
I'd like to think it wouldn't much matter to me what the sales rep's educational background was if he was good at his job. Good at his job would include:
- is respectful of my time - not late, polite, has prepared material,
- can present the case for his product so that I can understand how it might be useful - telling me a list of features isn't enough - in a good sales meeting, we come to a mutual understanding about the needs of my business and the capabilities of your product.
- is very knowledgeable about the product - especially if the company is small, I expect the sales rep to really know the product in depth.
- is knowledgable about the field - knowing the one product isn't enough - know your competitors, know the landscape of what businesses may already be doing in your arena. Have some sense of what it will take to implement your product and what the business case for it is.
The times an educational background would come up, IMO, would be if it seemed as if the sales rep did not know the subject domain well at all. Granted, I work in the technical industry, and even telling someone what a given product or solution does can take a serious education. This would vary greatly by product. In engineering, I know a lot of great engineers (and sales folks) who are not college grads, so this wouldn't phase me much - but also, I don't think I'd ask if my questions were being answered sufficiently. Of if I did ask it would be more "wow! how'd you get so smart?" and less like "woah, did you prepare for this?"