Sales Blog with Sales Tips

It seems as if prospects do everything they can to avoid us. Voicemail and email make it easy. Sometimes they can even be rude about it.

But at some level, this resistance can have a negative impact on our outlook. We’re made of flesh and blood; we’re not machines.

From Denial To Understanding
Many sales professionals routinely beat their chest and proclaim that the insensitivity thrown their way by prospects is “just part of their job.” I think this denial ends up hurting more than helping.

We’ve all heard sales managers doling out sales tips like: “They’re just words; ignore them. You gotta be tough. If this bothers you, you’re in the wrong business. Set your emotions aside.”

Denying our emotions serves no purpose. In fact, it’s counterproductive. Pretending you don’t feel something is always dysfunctional and a waste of energy.

Instead, we need to invest in understanding why prospects behave antagonistically toward us. This is empowering and makes us more effective.

When we do this, we take control.

So What’s Going On In The Buyer’s Head?
Decision makers have to do more with less; they have fewer resources. This cost cutting started long before the current recession – and will continue. It’s not that prospects are inhuman – they just don’t have time for us.

When we contact a prospect the first time, they quickly ask themselves the following questions:

• Does this person strike me as someone who is competent?
• Is this just another generic scripted sales call?
• What value does this person bring to me (“me” is more important at this point than “the organization”)?
• Is this person capable of helping me?
• What’s my time investment with this person – now and down the road? Is it worth it to me?

In short, prospects are asking themselves if they see enough WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) to give you a slice of their time.

Sales Tips For Avoiding Being Avoided
We’ve established that being rejected doesn’t exactly make us feel great if we’re honest with ourselves. We also know the reason prospects dodge us has more to do with their job and time pressures than it has to do with us.

But we are still tasked with getting through to decision makers. To do this we have to look and feel different from the sea of salespeople who are trying to contact them.

1. Quit dancing around. When you finally make contact with a decision maker, don’t spend your valuable seconds giving an encyclopedic history of your company and then ask for an appointment. Would you meet with yourself if you heard this same blather?

Get to the point. They’ve already figured out you’re a salesperson before you’ve uttered your third word. Let them quickly know you’re cold calling and want to talk to them about your products and services.

Doing this respects their time and intelligence.

2. Immediately establish your value. I’m not talking about running through a list of your company’s generic value propositions (boring, old school, scripted). Let them know how you might specifically help them. This, of course, is not possible unless you’ve done research on the prospect before calling.

3. Quit pushing. Don’t assume they’ve been waiting  all day for you to call. They haven’t. Ask them if they have a few minutes to talk. If now is not good, ask them if you could schedule a time to call.

You can’t force someone to talk to you.

4. Listen.

5. Lose the script. Oh, I know what you’re thinking, “But I don’t use a script.” Think about the last 10 prospecting calls you’ve made. You’re most likely using the same words repeatedly. When we use the same phrases habitually, we sound boring.

Your personality, energy and information about the prospect (from your research) should provide the ammo you need to create some charisma in the ears of the prospect.

6. Closed-ended questions get no respect in my opinion. Open-ended questions are good, at the right time. Your first question to a prospect can’t be a deep and wide open-ended question. You haven’t earned the right to ask them this kind of question.

Start with some simple closed-ended questions and move into open-ended questions. When you initially meet people personally would you ask them, “What is your life story?” Feels uncomfortable doesn’t it?

Takeaways
Getting the cold shoulder from prospects can make us feel bad. It’s okay to have that emotion.

Understanding the real reasons prospects want to avoid us is empowering and useful.

We can employ prospecting principles to minimize the chance we’ll be ignored.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Find a New Sales Job

All sales professionals sound the same. I’m serious. We seem to all pull our conversations from the same verbal bag.

No wonder prospects (and even our established customers) don’t want to talk to us. Even a good song played too many times will eventually become unappetizing.

But how do sales professionals get in this habit?

First, A Story About A Child And A War Hero
I was in a department store recently and saw a man whose legs were both missing. I did what every adult would do and took my one allowed stare and then looked away.

A child whom I would guess was about 5 years old took another tack. She walked right up to the man and said, “What happened to your legs?” The man in the wheelchair very calmly and proudly answered her question, explaining he had lost them in a war fought in Iraq. She nodded her head indicating she understood and walked away.

A non-event for both parties. The child’s mother did not interfere. The wisdom of a mother.

What Just Happened?
There was a desire for information from the little girl and she engaged the man. Simple enough.

Unlike the little girl, we frequently struggle to converse honestly and openly with prospects and customers. We resort to scripted and safe conversations that have worked for us in the past. Over time, we start to sound like every other salesperson on the planet.

We’re at best putting our customers to sleep or, even worse, annoying them with our “salesy” dribble.

How Did We Get Into This Habit?

• Boredom
• Laziness
• Fear
• Bad training
• Reliance on scripts or canned responses/questions
• “It’s working okay.”
• “It’s what I’ve always done.”

Start Thinking Like A Child
Inject a childlike freshness and fearlessness into your communications with your customers. Start talking to your customers at a core level.

Your new openness will enhance the quality of your customer relationships. They will view you as more real and straightforward.

You’ll stand out from the crowd.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

There is an avalanche of misunderstanding and disagreement when it comes to value propositions.

Since there is no absolute definition of value propositions, let me give you a brief history. I’ll let you come to your own conclusions as to what they really are and how you might use them in your selling efforts.

In The Beginning…Phase 1
It all started with salespeople doing nothing more than selling the features of their products. This kind of selling started before the industrial revolution and sounded something like, “Ivory soap is 99.44% pure.” Nothing more than a simple feature.

Things Evolve…Phase 2
Around the 1930’s, the advertising and selling world realized that prospects needed more than a feature. They needed a reason to buy. The benefit was born. Tell the prospect about a feature and then tell them why it helps them.

Significantly driven by automotive advertising, we saw feature-benefit statements like, “General Motors’ new Hydra-Matic transmission completely removes the work of shifting and operating a clutch.”

Circa 1970’s…Phase 3
The first hint of sophistication in features and benefits enters here. The marketing types realized (as we know today) that prospects couldn’t care less about the feature; they were interested in the advantage to them (i.e. the benefit).

The marketers fixed this by simply reversing the feature-benefit statement to a benefit-feature statement. Tell them the benefit first and then tell them how it is achieved.

“Give your children more of your time by using Duncan Hines’ 1-2-3 easy cake mix.”

The Birth Of Value Propositions…Phase 4
Transport yourself to the 1980’s.

It is arguable who actually “invented” value propositions. There is also little agreement as to what ingredients should be in a value proposition and in what order they should appear.

However, most value propositions include the following four basic components and normally in this order (but not always): need, feature, benefit, uniqueness/differentiation.

“Busy executives need to be able to work in comfort when traveling. American Airlines’ business class provides you the ability to conduct business in a luxurious environment. No other airline offers as many business class seats as American.”

One More…Phase 5
Sales and marketing is currently operating, for the most part, under phase 4. But there is a new wind blowing. Primarily driven by the Gen Y’ers.

This wind is called the New Authenticity. It throws out all of the above and simply asks the sales professional to be revealing, honest and direct with the prospect. No formulas. No games. No marketing (at least not overt).

Kind of refreshing sounding isn’t it?

Sales Tips Wrap Up
You’ve been through all of your company’s sales training and you’ve heard the marketers at your company tell you their story. Your sales manager uses “value proposition” or “value added selling” in every third sentence.

However, the most successful sales professionals have used the new authenticity approach for their entire sales career. They just didn’t know what to call it.

This new authenticity thing has legs.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer