Who's Leading the Dance: You or the Buyer?

“The key to successful selling is to have a better system than the one your buyer has been using on you for years.”

— David H. Sandler

In his book, You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar, David Sandler tells of a breakthrough moment when he realized prospective buyers had his number.

They knew what he was going to do and say before he even spoke. They had already developed a system designed to defend against whatever he planned to do in the meeting. Sandler had lost the battle before it began.

Here’s what happened. Buyers picked Sandler’s brain, got his best insights on solving their problem, took notes of his best ideas, nodded thoughtfully … and then took what he’d shared and did one of four things with it.

• They would shop the idea around often using it to squeeze their current vendor
• They would forget all about the idea
• They would steal some or all of the idea without working with or paying the seller who came up with it
• or They would buy.

Options one through three featured a disappearing act we call “ghosting.” Option four didn’t happen often enough, or at a level of financial commitment, that made economic sense for the seller.

Salespeople may assume they've had a great prospect conversation. They take lots of notes, put together a proposal, the prospect falls off the radar, and the seller starts chasing.

They leave voicemails, send follow-up messages, and compose “just-checking-in” emails. Throughout this dance, they’re working way too hard for someone who isn’t a customer.

That’s not selling—that’s hoping. And hope is not a strategy. In what Sandler called the “buyer-seller dance,” we all face a clear choice: hope or agency.

To lead the dance, we must apply a proactive and proven selling methodology. Merely showing up, following instructions, and educating the buyer is not enough.

Why the Buyer's Dance Exists

Sandler believed the sales process should be viewed as a win-win situation. Any salesperson who has spent time in the trenches knows, buyers often see themselves as people with something to lose: their money, time, and/or reputation. As a result, they usually come to adopt an adversarial approach to interactions with salespeople. This is why the buyer’s dance exists.

Under the buyer’s system, the goal is to get as much as possible from the salesperson without committing to a purchase. Buyers freely spend the salesperson’s time because they know the more time a salesperson invests in a sale, the more eager that salesperson will be to win the business … which strengthens the buyer’s position.

Buyers often believe they’re doing the salesperson a favor by granting them an audience or reading their texts or emails. They think salespeople should be grateful to communicate with them and should willingly assume a subservient role in the buyer-seller dance. Sellers waste time with people who never buy, or end up in a bidding war with the competition for the lowest price.

How to Lead the Dance

Salespeople can be too hard or too soft in their sales approach. Aggressive salespeople have trained buyers to assume a defensive posture; subservient salespeople have allowed buyers to take full control. When we adopt either approach, we drive buyers to assume control of the dance.

Whether we fail or succeed as salespeople depends on our ability to create an equal business stature with buyers.

Not pushy. Not subservient. Equal in stature. That means communicating with buyers as peers, being warm and nurturing in our communication, but firm in our commitment, consistency, and confidence when buyers attempt to manipulate us, as they inevitably will.

A lot of salespeople fail because they do not know how to take control of the dance and lead buyers through the process as a trusted consultant. This is both an art and a skill.

Selling is a noble profession. the sales process can be something both parties enjoy, and helping others through the sales process is a real, tangible, and teachable skill.

David Sandler developed the Sandler Sales Methodology because he held these truths to be self-evident:

• Salespeople are professionals and deserve respect.
• The buyer has the responsibility to qualify for the salesperson’s time, not the other way around.
• Salespeople have the responsibility to follow a repeatable and scalable system.

We can take the uncertainty, worry, and pressure out of the dance … if we understand the psychology behind every sale.

Learn the steps and consistently and profitably lead with prospective buyers. Contact us to get started.