Sales Blog with Sales Tips

There are a million myths about the selling profession. What’s most frustrating is that many “sales trainers” dole these out as quality sales tips.

Here are 10 of my not-so-favorites presented in no particular order.

Myth #1
Salespeople lie more than buyers. The math on this one is simple. A sales professional has a lot more to lose by lying than a buyer. As an example, I’ve asked dozens of professional buyers if they’ve ever lied about pricing. I haven’t found any who said they hadn’t engaged in this practice. A salesperson would be committing sales suicide to lie about a price.

Myth #2
The internet will replace all sales professionals. Ever see a website find a decision maker or uncover a prospect’s budget? How about discovering a buying time frame or learning about the competitive landscape?

Myth #3
Ninety-two percent of our communication with customers is through body language. If this were true, then phones, emails, text messages, marketing collateral, etc. would be virtually useless.

Myth #4
If you can just get your foot in the door, you’re halfway there. If this is how you get an audience with prospects, you’ve already alienated them. They aren’t listening to a word you’re saying either.

Myth #5
ABC (Always Be Closing). People are hardwired to resist being pushed. Push enough and they’ll run – and not toward you. The close is merely the final and natural step in a well-orchestrated sales process.

Myth #6
People buy on price. Price is always a consideration, but it actually ranks number five for buyers in study after study. Availability, risk, service and quality are more important to a buyer than price. Buyers ask about availability and price because we can immediately give them hard numbers on these items. Risk, service and quality are learned through relationship and time.

Myth #7
There is a stereotypical sales personality. If that were true, a pre-hire sales test would exist that could effectively weed out the non-sales types. There isn’t such a test (i.e. one that works) because all successful sales professionals are different.

Myth #8
Sales professionals only care about making money. Studies show that income ranks below a number of other factors such as job satisfaction and professional growth for sales professionals just as it does for people in other occupations.

Myth #9
Sales is just a game of numbers. This might have been true 15+ years ago – but not today. Sales is an information and relationship game. Quality, not quantity.

Myth #10
Working for the best vendor or supplier means you’ll win the sale. Creating a relationship with a prospect that is based on your good character and work ethic gets the business. Besides, the prospect decides who is the best vendor.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

I recently spoke with a longtime reader from West Virginia who told me his sales manager has a problem with one of my sales concepts.

I enjoy controversy; this was music to my ears.

Tell Me More
I asked him to tell me the specifics of his disagreement. He said it was really only one thing. His sales manager didn’t like my “less is more” school of thought. He felt I am teaching his sales team to be lazy.

Interestingly, the reader pointed out that his sales peers are 180-degrees apart from his sales manager on this issue. They think “less is more” actually works in the real world.

Exactly What Is “Less Is More?”
First of all, I do teach that less is more in my sales tips, although I’ve never used that phrase to package my sales philosophy.

The reader explained to me that when his boss says, “less is more,” he’s talking about my concepts of:

• Don’t waste time pounding the phone in a frenzy of prospecting activity. Instead, focus on how much revenue is being generated from carefully identified and researched prospects that have turned into customers.

• Some sales professionals need a lot of time in the office and some don’t. Being out of the office means nothing. Being in the office means nothing. Look at results, not calendars.

• Paperwork and data input are niceties, but sales professionals are fired or promoted based on their sales volume. Don’t get mired down inputting endless amounts of data into a CRM system (or its ilk) whose reports get a perfunctory overview at best from sales management.

• I’m a huge proponent of new business development.  However, investing significant amounts of time with high potential existing accounts provides a 250% better return on our time (Marketing Metrics study). We must see our current accounts as prospects.

• Please  immediately stop this ABC (Always Be Closing) stupidity. If a sales professional has done his or her job, closing is simply the last step of a process. Pushing for a “close” every step of the way guarantees that the salesperson looks “salesy,” desperate and selfish. It kills relationship development and builds walls too.

I Could Go On
But I won’t.

Am I teaching “less is more?” Yes!

Will I change? No!

Why? Because I’m not going to perpetuate the sales methodology myths that are still rampant in sales training and sales management today. The goal is to sell, not to look busy.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

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.

©2009 Scott R. Sheaffer