Sales Blog with Sales Tips

When I was learning to drive in high school the driving instructors sent all the young student drivers to the school auditorium to watch a series of little horror movies. These movies, which must have dated back to the 1940s, featured teenage carnage and mayhem on the highways. The theme was always some form of “speed kills.”

Speed Can Hurt Us in Sales Too
These types of movies made us laugh (not exactly the intended result) because they were produced in such a cheesy way. The serious point they were trying to drive home to their common-sense-challenged teenage audience interestingly also applies to sales. Speed can kill.

“Customers are frequently like Chinese Finger Traps.”

8 Speed Traps
I have frequently observed the “speed kills” problem in rookie sales professionals, but experienced pro’s aren’t immune either. The following are eight sales tips on how speed can kill sales:

1. As soon as the customer indicates they want to buy something, we promptly write the order, thank them for their business and head out the door or hang up the phone. All opportunities for cross-selling are missed.
2. When we successfully identify a decision maker, we don’t take the time to see if there are other decision makers we should be contacting in the same organization. We could be missing sales from an entire department due to our haste in this area.
3. In our desire to expedite the sales process we don’t make time to ask our customers open ended questions that could provide us with valuable information regarding their needs.
4. Our need for speed can result in insufficient time allocated for relationship building. Relationships take time. All sales professionals know that relationships are the key to high quality long-term customers. This is a frequent topic of this sales blog.
5. While we can influence a customer’s buying timeframe, if we resort to arm-twisting in order to get them to buy more quickly, we risk losing more than just an order.
6. What’s the number one complaint from customers about sales professionals from virtually every study that has ever been done? We don’t listen. When customers perceive that we are rushing, they know we aren’t listening.
7. Human behavior suggests that the more we are pushed, the more we naturally resist. Customers are frequently like Chinese Finger Traps. The harder we try to make them do something (e.g., hurry up), the more they resist.
8. The harder we spur a customer to move faster and place an order, the more desperate we look. Customers don’t like buying from desperate sales professionals.

I could provide more sales tips because there are plenty of additional ways that hurrying customers hurts us in sales. Please see “Further reading” below for related posts from this sales blog.

Sales Blog Epilogue
Am I saying that we don’t need to move fast with customers? No. Am I saying that we shouldn’t make every reasonable effort to close orders faster? No. However, I am saying that rabidly rushing customers in order to make them purchase faster can have many undesirable and unintended consequences.

© 2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

I use the term “commodity” frequently in this sales blog. Let’s get on the same page regarding its meaning in a sales context. First of all, it usually has a negative connotation. It implies that our products and services:

• Have few, if any, value added services.
• Are easily and commonly found.
• Are inexpensive.
• Are not unique or “brandable.”
• Are unsophisticated and simple.

“Commodity selling is a frame of mind…not a product or service.”

Commodity Selling Perspective
Selling a commodity product or service can easily deteriorate to price only…if we let it. If we’re not careful, we could turn selling nuclear power plants into commodity sales. However, we can also make corn (the ultimate commodity item) into something much more than just a commodity in the eyes of our customers.

Regardless of what we’re selling, we can control whether we create a commodity-selling situation, or not.

The Wrong Kind of Sales Tips
The following is the toxic formula that will result in your being a commodity salesperson regardless of what you’re selling (i.e., avoid all of these):

• Always talk about price first.
• Never discuss the added services your company provides.
• Mention your competitors frequently.
• Avoid all decision makers and spend all of your time with information gatherers or recommenders.
• Never add-on-sell, up-sell or cross-sell. Never let the customer know you have a breadth of products and services.
• Offer to quote prices on anything and everything, even if the customer doesn’t ask.
• Provide the customer every brochure, flyer, reference sheet and catalog your company has ever produced. Help them kick-start their paper recycling program.

The Right Kind of Sales Tips
If you use the following recipe when selling, you can lift yourself out of the commodity classification. This works whether you’re selling wheat germ (whatever that is), buckwheat or space shuttles.

Commodity selling is a frame of mind…not a product or service.

• Your first priority is to educate your customers about the added value you and your company make available to them. Negotiate price, etc. only after that has been done.
• Talk about yourself and your company. Avoid discussions about your competitors. You’re not there to talk about them.
• Find and get to the decision makers who will appreciate your added value. Decision makers understand ROI (Return on Investment) much better than recommenders and information gatherers.
• Look like the multi-line company you are by teaching your customers what you have to offer.
• Quote prices only when customers are serious about, and capable of, buying.
• God gave you words to sell with; their power can be Biblical. Use them to sell; marketing collateral alone doesn’t sell anything.

Sales Blog Epilogue
You can decide to rise above a commodity salesperson regardless of what you sell and you can decide to do it right now. Powerful stuff.

© 2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

How many companies are there in the United States? It’s a large number. I’ll give you the number a little later in this sales blog post. What I like about the number is that there are plenty of fish in the pond. You and your company only think you have tapped the potential of your markets.

“…quit wasting time on that prospect who’s playing a big game of hard-to-get when there are so many others interested in dancing with us.”

How Many are There?
A reliable and current source says there are 20,392,694 businesses in the United States. Over 20 million companies operate in the United States. And you know what? Sometimes we act as if there are 237 businesses instead of 20,000,000+.

He Needed Sales Tips for Dating
I had a friend in high school who fell in love with one girl who didn’t even know his name. His efforts to go out with her didn’t seem to work. He would obsess over this one girl. What drove us all nuts was that this guy looked like Brad Pitt. Many girls would have been happy to go out with him. However, he chose to put all of his “prospecting” efforts into just one girl. He didn’t date much.

When we’ve made a gallant effort to land a prospect but we aren’t getting anywhere, it’s smart to move on. There are many opportunities for us to “date” prospects, but we’re so focused on a handful of them that we lose site of the big picture.

Conventional sales tips tell you to “never give up” on a prospect. However, there’s a point where we need to quit wasting time on that prospect who’s playing a big game of hard-to-get when there are so many others interested in dancing with us.

Sales Blog Epilogue
Our prospect “black book” is huge in the United States. As sales professionals, we’re fortunate. Cross out the names of the ones that aren’t responding to your efforts and contact some of the other 20,392,693. There are plenty who want to go out with you, but first you have to pick up the phone and make a “date.”

© 2010 Scott R. Sheaffer