Competency does not equal Success in sales.
Many companies invest heavily in training their staff to be competent. By competent, I mean able to to have a an adequate conversation with a customer and be able to take them through and complete standard company processes like quotes, proving product info and catalogues by email or hard copy and similar.
Now, for many business owners, managers and directors, they believe that this is sufficient to ensure sales and the ironic truth is that competency is simply not enough.
Maybe you have a great website, super marketing material and a great product and yet – the sales SIMPLY AREN’T THERE!
How many times have you been in a sales meeting with client and its HOT! Energy is great, client is really keen, LOVES the product or service and you think , ” BAM! This is done!”
Then after the meeting – NOTHING…NOTHING..not even a response…
You just don’t understand it…everything was great, what happened?
Simple. The client didn’t trust you enough to tell you the truth.
The reality of the modern environment is that with information being so readily available to anyone , anywhere and anytime, the provision of simple product information from sales people is just not necessary.
Customers are now looking for more and it’s not competency they want, its quality.
Not quality of product , but quality of experience.
Customer Relationships – the Truth and the Myth.
Everyone and anyone who has a business is always talking about customer relationships and yet almost no-one ever gets it right.
If you consider your best relationships whether they are personal or business, there is one single factor that differentiates that relationship from every other one you have that doesn’t fall into that category and that single factor is Trust.
Trust is built on communication and a willingness to clearly understand the other’s needs and to see whether what you can offer can in fact meet those needs.
The only way this can happen is if there is an open and honest conversation between two people with neither having any preconceived ideas about what the other needs and whether they can be sold something.
In my business, I have a saying that goes,” We don’t sell, we help people buy.”
The fundamental difference in this approach is that every time I see a potential customer, my immediate focus is NOT TO SELL- my focus is to determine the truth of whether there is a sale or not.
My objective in any meeting is NEVER to SELL anything until a fully understand who this person is, what their real requirements are and why and if I can really assist them.
When you shift your thinking from one of a ‘competent salesman robot’ to a person simply trying to establish the truth and to having a conversation and not delivering a sales pitch, you will see an immediate difference in the relationship dynamic.
Not only that, but you will be able to gain the trust of the person you are talking to BECAUSE you’re not trying to sell them anything.
We have all been on the wrong side of sales calls where as we answer the phone we can tell immediately that this is a sales call and the objection barriers go up!
No matter what that person is offering , EVEN if it cold have value, we have shut our doors to it and why?
Because they did not offer immediate and specific relevant value to us upfront!
They simply got through to you and started telling all about their product or service without really every taking the time to determine whether it would have any value for you or not!
This is sales (in)competency in action!
Consider this.
You meet someone socially and ask them out on a date.
You meet at the agreed time and venue , sit down and order a coffee.
For the next 20 minutes all you do is talk about yourself and all the things that make you great (in your opinion) and the other person does the same!
How long do you think that relationship would last – if it ever even got going?
We wouldn’t do this with someone we were genuinely interested in , so why do this with potential customers?
Brand is ego pure and simple.
When you spend the first 20 minutes of your sales discussion talking about yourself (that’s all a sale pitch is), your customer is going to lose interest.
They don’t care about you or your company, product or services – they care ABOUT THEM!
Talking about your brand and services or products before understanding what the client REALLY needs is tantamount to being on a date with a lady and telling her how big your d*ck is!
If you don’t find common ground , something that you can both relate to, that relationship is doomed!
People buy from people.
In any business, your customers buy from you- NOT YOUR COMPANY! They buy from you because they TRUST you and PRICE is almost NEVER a determining factor where there are proper relationships.
Sales is NEVER about numbers, always about quality and not of product, but of the sales conversation that happens between the salesperson and the client.
We need to move away from investing in training that makes our staff competent and rather invest in training that gives them tools to engage in high quality conversation, where the goal of the conversation is SOLELY to determine the TRUTH of whether there is a sale or not.
To do this, you need to shift the sales mindset away from the ‘MAKE A SALE’ mentality to one that seeks to connect with the person on the other end and really understand why they have contacted you and to explore the real issues they have and whether you can really assist them or not.
We need to stop being salespeople and become strategic advisors.
In ancient Royal courts, there were no sales people, the Kings and Queens had a bevy of trusted advisors that they could call on at any time should any information be required and empowering them to make properly informed decisions for the benefit of the Kingdom.
In your business you probably have multiple specialists that can provide information far more accurately than yourself or your sales people – so why train salespeople when the knowledge is available from an authority?
To show the merit of this , refer to the great Henry Ford.
Henry Ford
During the World War, a Chicago news paper ran an article questioning Henry Ford’s intelligence because he was not formally educated. One of the biggest flaws in today’s education system is the way they teach students how to organize and use knowledge after they acquire it. If you have read the past blogs you will know that knowledge is NOTHING of value unless you take the correct action to produce results. When the Chicago paper printed that Ford was “an Ignorant Pacifist” Ford brought a Law Suit against the paper.
During the proceedings, the paper was so confidant in their statement that they brought Ford to the witness stand. They started to ask Ford many questions on history and philosophy. After the questions became a bit too much, Ford finally replies to an offensive question by saying, “If I should really WANT to answer the foolish question you have just asked, or any of the other questions you have been asking me, let me remind you that I have a row of electric push-buttons on my desk, and by pushing the right button, I can summon to my aid men who can answer ANY question I desire concerning the business to which I am devoting most of my efforts. Now, will you kindly tell me, WHY I should clutter up my mind with general knowledge, for the purpose of being able to answer questions, when I have men around me who can supply any knowledge I require?”
Well needless to say that shut up the lawyer pretty quickly and everyone knew that this was not the answer of an ignorant man but a man of education. There is no reason to need to know the answer to everything, all you need to know is where to get the answer.
The above is an excerpt from the article above.
Specific Relevant Value.
When you shift from a sales pitch to a conversation and to simply establish the truth of whether there is a sale or not, you are able to really understand who the client is and the real needs they have.
They will trust you to tell you the truth about what they need and that way you can deliver specific relevant value in terms of whether your product or service can resolve their specific issue.
There is no sales pressure, no resistance and no objections and the entire experience is a higher quality experience that really stands out from everything else out there.
By creating a customised sales communication system and empowering staff to properly engage with customers using relevant questions for the purpose of determining the truth of whether there is a sale or not, you could quiet easily double or triple your sales success.
To find out more about Customised Sales Communication from Izon, simply contact me.
Craig Berman is the MD at Izon Communications and currently the sales communication partner to Imperial’s Sales Cadet Programme in partnership with EOH.