Sales Blog with Sales Tips

When it comes to personal relationships I agree with the belief that indifference is worse than hate. If someone hates you, at least he or she knows you’re alive.

Sales professionals get into trouble in this area because we so desperately want our customers and prospects to love us.  We can’t bear to think about their hate or indifference.

In sales, the absence of love in a customer/sales professional relationship is not always a losing proposition. Indifference, however, is another story.

Love Is Nice, But…
Below are some hard and cold facts about customer/sales professional relationships.

1. Customers don’t have to love us to buy from us. Your customers deal with many sales professionals in the course of their work. These are big girls and boys who understand they won’t have stellar chemistry with all of their suppliers’ representatives. They’re primarily interested in our quality and service.

2. Just because a prospect loves you doesn’t mean they’ll buy from you. There is nothing sadder than watching sales professionals focus (i.e. waste) 100% of their efforts on “the relationship.” They are invited to the prospects’ holiday parties and even attend the Bar Mitzvahs for the employees’ kids.

These sales professionals lose sight of the ultimate objectives – selling and making money. As one customer told me many years ago, “We know you like us, Scott, and we like you. But we understand you’re not here just to become better buddies with us.”

3. Standing out – even in a goofy way – is far better than being forgotten. Never leave a prospect in a state of emotional neutrality. Leave them excited or happy or frustrated or dissatisfied with the status quo, but never leave them disinterested. You’ll be forgotten.

4. Customers don’t gravitate to sales professionals whom they perceive as needing love and affection. People pick up the “I need to be loved” vibe and they respond in a negative way.

5. Hand shaking, sweet talking, lunch taking, promo giving, nice looking, suit wearing, nice smelling sales professionals are a dime a dozen. The “love me formula” is so universal in sales that we all look the same to the customer. They don’t even see us.

A huge field of beautiful sunflowers is nice eye candy, but not a single one of the flowers stands out. They are individually forgettable. You’ll also be forgettable if you fail to remember there’s more to a business transaction than trying to grease the wheels of the relationship.

Sales Tips Wrap Up
We all know that good relationships are critical to selling. However, we aren’t required to have a love affair with all of our prospects and customers in order to sell to them. Customer and prospect indifference is our biggest enemy when it comes to relationships. Indifference equals invisibility.

Further sales blog reading:
Your Style Of Customer Relationship Skills Might Be Sinking Your Ship
Always Being Nice Is Not A Good Sales Strategy
Quirky Sales Professionals

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>©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Scott Sheaffer’s New Book, “Comatose Management”
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The reason our customers buy from our company is because of us. This truth tells us that sales professionals need to focus on their personal value – versus corporate value – when interacting with customers.

Corporate Value
During our initial sales training, we are drilled on our company’s corporate value propositions. These are all the things our company does that are presumably better and theoretically different from our competitors.

However, in the eyes of the customer, our competitors look more like our brothers or sisters. Our customers don’t fully appreciate all the effort our marketing department is expending in an attempt to differentiate between our company and our competitors. Companies are very limited in the number of believable value propositions they can actually come up with.

But, there is one clear differentiator we have complete control over. Our competitors can’t replicate it.  It’s one that makes all the difference. One with an endless number of possibilities.

You.

Personal Value
Faithfully towing the company line and exclusively promoting corporate value propositions causes us to miss many opportunities to stand out from the crowd. It is also much easier to differentiate ourselves through personal value instead of corporate value.

We are not restricted in the number of ways for us to personally be prominent and distinct in our industry. The principle of personal value is right under our nose and we’re not using it to our advantage.

A Simple Example Of Personal Value We Can Add Right Now
As sales professionals, we tend to fixate on all the problems our customers’ voicemail systems cause us.

How about our own voicemail and the problems it causes our customers? We can differentiate ourselves from 99% of our competitors by merely updating our voicemail on a daily basis and returning calls according to what we’ve promised in our voicemail greeting.

If we’re going to be out of the office, we must say so and let callers know when they can expect us to return their call. Most importantly, we must ensure that we return their call precisely as we’ve indicated – never make them wait more than two hours for a return call.

By updating our voicemail every morning, we look up to date, relevant and like a sales professional who is on top of things.

Sales Blog Epilogue
The example above is but one of many easy and straightforward personal differentiators that make us look proactive and professional. We are only limited by our imagination and the industry we serve when it comes to creating our own personal value propositions.

Further sales blog reading:
Our Professionalism May Be Killing Us
Value Propositions, Corporate and Personal
Quirky Sales Professionals
Your Personality is What the Customer Wants to See

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>©2009 Scott R. Sheaffer

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Many of the things we say and do to create and enhance customer relationships actually erode them instead. That’s right. We regularly use exactly the wrong behaviors to get what we want when it comes to rapport building.

2 Principles of Relationships
There are two essential truths when it comes to bonding with one another. These truths are counterintuitive. As you read these two points in this sales blog, think of your past customer experiences in creating and nurturing relationships as reference points.

Principle #1
Detachment. You will never be everyone’s friend. Not everyone is going to like you. Don’t try to force a psychological relationship on customers. It will backfire.

However, oozing an aura of detachment ironically draws people to you. People naturally put up defenses when they feel anything is being forced on them. Including you. People want to be friends with people who don’t need friends. They want to choose to be in the relationship.

Simply stated, be the cool-kid in high school who everyone liked.   The cool-kid never needed groupies. Don’t be the popular-kid who always had to be the center of attention and felt worthless without adoring fans. Have you noticed that post high school cool-kids are generally much more successful in life than post high school popular-kids? Check it out at your next high school reunion.

Psychological detachment is a good tool; however, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be available to others.  More on this below.

Principle #2
Abundance. Exuding – or even fully verbalizing – that you don’t need someone’s business will make you a more attractive business associate. Customers like doing business with people who aren’t desperate, or needy, or twisting their arm.

When your personality radiates the idea that there is plenty of business to be had, even if a particular person doesn’t buy from you, it is called abundance. “There’s enough business for everyone, and unless it’s a good fit for both of us, we won’t force the issue.”

This is the New Authenticity in action.

Principle #3
Okay, I know I wrote there were two principles. But, there is a third. The first two concern things we tend to do, but shouldn’t (i.e. psychologically clinging to people and pushing customers into actions they aren’t ready for).

The last principle has to do with showing interest. This is something we should do. Always let your customers know you value them, have time for them, respect them, will listen to them.

Further reading:

• 8 Speed Traps in Sales [Customer relationship building takes time and deliberate effort.]
• Our Professionalism May Be Killing Us [Sales tips on allowing our real personality to help us sell.]
• Why Dogs Make Bad Sales Professionals [Brown-nosing our customers can backfire.]
• Can Hillary Clinton teach us something about sales? [Sales blog post on the dangers of not being authentic.]

>You can automatically receive Sales Tips Blog by Scott R. Sheaffer >by email< or >by RSS<.
>Follow >Scott R. Sheaffer< on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.
>©2009 Scott R. Sheaffer

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There is a trend in sales that is a breath of fresh air. It’s called The New Authenticity. Let me provide some sales tips on what it is, why it’s happening and how you can use it.

The New Authenticity Defined
All of us have seen black and white movies where we get glimpses of the stereotypical salesman from the 1940’s and 1950’s (women were rarely allowed in the profession at that time). Sadly, these movies were not parodies. Unfortunately, much of the sales training dished out today is based on that model.

Fast forward to 2009. Yes, there has been progress in how sales professionals are trained, but essentially we are being coached in how to manipulate the customer in one form or another.

The New Authenticity is focused on service and personal credibility with our customers versus arm wrestling and psychological sales tactics. Don’t misunderstand; sales professionals who practice The New Authenticity are attempting to maximize their selling opportunities. The New Authenticity teaches that we can be forthright, open and protective of our customers as a means of being more effective, even if it means we may forfeit sales in the short term.

Why The New Authenticity Is Growing So Quickly
There are three primary reasons The New Authenticity is growing rapidly:

1. The amount of selling pressure being exerted on customers in our current selling environment has become counterproductive. When you push too hard, people push back.
2. It’s become an escalating war of avoidance from the point of the customer. I’m amazed at the sophistication that customers have resorted to in order to avoid talking with a salesperson. Traditional cold calling is almost dead. It doesn’t work anymore.
3. All sales professionals look the same to customers. We all say the same things. We all use the same selling concepts. There is nothing new under the sun except The New Authenticity. Customers see us in a completely different way when we use this method. We’re not lost in the white noise of traditional sales approaches.

Sales Tips For Implementing The New Authenticity With Your Customers
When I discuss this concept with other sales professionals they all go through the same three-step process: 1) This won’t work, 2) I feel like I’m doing exactly the opposite of what I should be doing, 3) It works because customers put their defenses down.

Here’s how you can implement The New Authenticity with your customers:

• Be yourself. No more scripts. You’ve got a personality; use it.
• Be honest about your company’s strengths and weaknesses. Ironically, revealing a weakness voluntarily makes your strengths appear stronger to a customer.
• Be up-front about your intentions with customers. If you’re trying to add an existing product line to what they already buy from you, tell them.
• Lose the marketing exaggeration. Be honest about your company and yourself.
• Use the creativity you were born with. Be original in your approach.
• Lower your defenses. No one wants to deal with anyone who is defensive. Openness is the antithesis of defensiveness.

Two Warnings
Warning One: There will be sales trainers coming out of the woodwork telling you this is a bad idea. Don’t listen to them. They’re old school. They don’t want to change and adapt. Look at the top sales professionals in your company. All of them are already using some form of The New Authenticity.

Warning Two: Depending on where you sit on the continuum of old school versus The New Authenticity, you might want to ease into this New Authenticity thing. You’ll want to do this for a couple of reasons. First, you don’t want to frighten your customers. Second, you’ll need time to adapt and learn this style.

Further reading:

• Point Out Your Product’s Weaknesses And Sell More
• Get customer cooperation by “lowering your shields”

>You can automatically receive Sales Tips Blog by Scott R. Sheaffer >by email< or >by RSS<.
>Follow >Scott R. Sheaffer< on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.
>©2009 Scott R. Sheaffer

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Are you satisfied with your sales results?
Kay Ray can show you and your team how to reach
your objectives and unlock the door to success.
thekayray.com