Brandon Gerard, one of our members of the Advanced Selling Podcast Linkedin group, asked a great question today and thought it was worth sharing:
“Is your smart phone hurting your customer relationships? I came across this great article, How Your Cell Phone Hurts Your Relationships by Scientific American, discussing how the presence of a smart phone causes people to trust you less if they see it sitting out next to you.”
It seems that the very thing we are looking for – the motive – is something we should study extensively, but we don’t. Buyer motives are tricky. Motives are usually in some form of “pain” or “problem” with the prospect’s current reality, or “unexploited opportunity” (a brighter future that they can realize with your solution).
Most salespeople think motives have to do with their products. But that is a myth. Your value is tied to problems you solve or opportunities you help people create by being in their lives. Your clients buy from you because you solve a problem better or differently from anyone else.
I wake up nights thinking about why I so detest the idea of ‘convince and persuade’ in the sales process. In fact, Bryan Neale said in a recent podcast, “No place in selling for persuasion or convincing.” A bold statement, yes. But one I agree with.
I think I’ve always felt like persuasion and influence are something you do TO someone, not WITH someone. When a salesperson comes back from a sales call, the sales manager typically says (or thinks), “Did you convince them to use us?”
Or, if he doesn’t actually say that, it is an understood question.
And so begins the spiral of “doing it TO someone.” Even the very word “SELL” is an active verb that implies you are doing it TO another person.
Instead of thinking, “How do I persuade, convince or influence someone?” let’s ask the question in another, more passive voice:
“What do I need to do so that the person becomes persuaded, becomes convinced, becomes influenced by me so they make the decision that they want to make?”(Not the decision I want them to make.)
I think if we use the passive verb of ‘become persuaded,’ it’s much more positive and powerful than it is to do something TO someone – as in the active voice of persuade.
How many times have you been called on by a salesperson that is only interested in your issues in as much as it will lead to a sale for them?
The fact is that your solution probably solves a problem of some kind for most clients. Even though we can suggest that “every client is different” (naturally, we don’t want to assume anything), we also have the luxury of experience in our businesses.
For example, in the sales training and coaching business, there are but a handful of problems that arise that we can help people with. And we know what those are going in so that we can spot them when they become issues.
A person can become persuaded pretty quickly if they discover, through your questions, that the problem is costing them $1.5 million per year. If they come to that conclusion, you don’t have to be very “persuasive” or “convincing.”
What kinds of pains/problems do you help people solve? Do you have a list of those? No? Shame on you.
How can you be a problem solver if you don’t even have a menu of the kind of problems you fix?
Start that list today.
Sometimes I wonder if we don’t unintentionally make our businesses too hard. We sales types lament a lot about prospecting and the behavior required to generate new discussions and meetings as if that were the only way to grow our business.
But that’s the way it will always be as long as we have our “sales hat” on. Because when that hat is on we are always thinking prospecting, cold calling, closing, handling objections, etc.
Sales people must learn to put their “marketing hat” on and that hat should cause you to ask the question:
“What can I put out into the marketplace to make my phone ring with interested and qualified prospects?”
Heck yeah it is, but not if you continue to think like a one at a time sales person who is stuck in an office making cold calls to generate appointments. You’re better than that and you should find a better way to execute.
I’m sure we’ve all heard that saying, but it’s important because it applies to many aspects of life – interviews, dating, networking and presentations.
A few weeks ago, I reached out to a company via email to determine if their services fit our needs. The owner contacted me a few days later and we discussed the purpose of my email. I clearly explained what we were looking for and we then set a time to meet.
STRIKE ONE!Upon arrival, the entire staff greeted me, that’s all fine and dandy, but I was blind-sided because I didn’t expect them to join us for the meeting.
So how did that make me – the prospect – feel in this situation? Confused. If your prospect is confused within 5 minutes of meeting you, then you’ve struck out.
√ THE LESSON: HAVE A CLEAR AGENDA AND MENTION ALL THE KEY PLAYERS PRIOR TO A MEETING WITH A PROSPECT OR CLIENT.Before you meet with a prospect and even a client, send them a CLEAR outline. The idea is to share the content of the meeting and inform them of other people who might join the meeting.
In our eBook, Email It – A Seller’s Guide to Emails That Work, we lay out the framework of how it might sound. One of the pre-written emails, specifically Email The Agenda Upfront, we lay how to write this email.
**This gets back to the premise that a person with a plan will be in control of the process and will create a great impression! After all, I’m sure you don’t want to confuse or surprise your prospect.
STRIKE TWO!At the beginning of the meeting, each employee stared at me like a deer in headlights. Clearly none of them knew what we were meeting about.
Use common sense. If you’re bringing a colleague, your boss, a friend or whomever into a meeting with a prospect or client– always fill them in on ALL the details beforehand!
STRIKE THREE!Don’t suggest the FULL enchilada unless you know all your prospect’s problems.
The company recommended the entire enchilada—after blindly diagnosing my pains and problems. Little did they know, the tasty taco would have fixed my problems.
One IMPORTANT part of the sales process is to find the Compelling Reason for change. As sales professionals, we have to get to the bottom of why a prospect would change what they are doing now to a new solution.
Babe Ruth said, “Don’t let the fear of striking out hold you back.” But if you only have three chances to hit a home run, then why not put your best foot forward and make a great impression?
We tend to write emails in the state of ‘need’. Think about it…
But that’s not a resourceful strategy.
In this video, Bill Caskey, Author of Email It — A Seller’s Guide to Emails That Work with 20 Pre-Written, Ready-to-Use Emails, gives you the framework to use for ANY email you might write to a prospect or your client.
The biggest problem when writing an email is your ‘state of mind’. This is the MOST IMPORTANT THING to consider as you craft emails.
One of the frustrating scenarios is introducing yourself to a person you’d like to meet with. In this tutorial, Bill Caskey, Author of Email It — A Seller’s Guide to Emails That Work with 20 Pre-Written, Ready-to-Use Emails, walks you thorough a very tactical framework to craft this important email.
Leave some breathing space. When we do role-plays in our training class, it’s amazing to us how often the discovery part of the sales process becomes an “interrogation.” When you ask the prospect a question, give him or her a chance to answer and follow up that answer with subsequent answers that probably get you closer to the theme. Stop getting in the way of the sale.