This is where I will upset at least a few people, including client contacts and I don’t like doing that. But this is important.
Who do you know who prides themselves in being great salespeople? In the good old /bad old days they would have crowed that they could “sell sand to the Arabs and ice to the Eskimos” . I think you might think of some contacts in Estate Agencies and car sales. It used to be you could include Life Assurance, but, thankfully, those days are gone. Some of you will know that’s where I started my sales career. So that probably explains my crusade against puffed-up salespeople; I used to be one and now, like a reformed smoker, I’m the least tolerant.
So what is my argument with certain types of salespeople? Well, the first thing is that these types are so convinced of their own abilities that they find it hard to accept that they can improve. I’ve been in sales now for decades and I’m still trying to improve. Maybe I’ll never get it perfect!
The second thing is that they think it’s their job to SELL. When I say that I mean TELL. It’s their job to persuade and explain, to justify and educate, to talk about Unique Selling Points and identify Impending Events. When, in fact, it’s their job to help their contact to BUY. And that means to help their contacts discover they want what’s on offer. For that, you have to STOP TELLING and ask lots of questions instead.
The third thing is, they train each other in a Sales Process that encapsulates all the things we as customers hate about having to deal with these salespeople. Yes, all the annoying things they do, that’s part of their “correct” sales process. You think they are being horrendous, in fact they’re doing it right. Now, who is correct here? Are they horrendous or are they doing everything right? Logically, if the customer is finding it hard to buy because of the salesperson then the sales process must be wrong.
At this point my contacts in those sales-y worlds will howl. But don’t they sell a LOT? Make quota? Look after their clients? Work hard? Yes, yes of course they do. But let me share with you a story from my other old world, financial media.
A flagship magazine (nameless to protect reputations) used to have 4 salespeople working on it. It might come as a surprise, but that is quite a big sales team for a specialist publication. They all worked hard. They stayed in daily contact with their clients’ agencies, prospected hard, did great deals and proposals for their clients. Now it turned out that for a while the team went down to just one salesperson. So the publication produced less revenue, right? No. Revenue did not fall. The clients continued to book into the publication at the same rate. They were using the magazine because of its readership. Nothing to do with the salespeople. They were buying space despite the sales team, not because of it.
We buy cars and houses (and advertising space if relevant) regardless. In fact, often despite the horrendous things the salespeople are doing, certainly not because of them.
OK, so what is so horrendous?
I have here in my hand the Sales Training Manual for a well-known car brand. Please don’t ask which one or how I got hold of it and I admit it was many years ago now so they probably have changed it anyway. But based on what I’ve heard and seen since, I’m not sure they have.
I won’t describe the whole process, but early on there’s the Need Analysis, then a presentation of the car with a five point walk through. Then a Test Drive. Back to the showroom for the Trial Close and the start of Negotiation and Closing.
Perhaps it’s not obvious what is so poor about all this. But if you find the real motivations why your client might want your product or services then talking about budget is so much easier and that flows into finding out how they could buy these things and suddenly all that pressure and closing tactics (I count a Test Drive as part of that strong-arm closing) goes away.
You know, I think the best time for that Test Drive is after the deal is done. Sort out the price and financing and so on, then say something like “How about we take your new car for a spin and then come back and finish up this paperwork, what do you think?” Wow! As a prospective customer you’re not stressing about the cost and being closed using stupid lines like “I’ll just check with my manager what we can do for you…” because you’ve already done all that so you can concentrate on making sure this car is absolutely right and feels great and will fulfil all you want. No question about that final signature! After all, the car is yours now!
So, if you are in a very sales-y world right now and you are based in Surrey, Sussex, Berkshire, Hampshire or Kent and you’d like to know how to stand out from your competition by doing something different and you suspect that your clients buy despite your sales team, not because of them, then contact me and we’ll see if Sandler can help.
