Sales Blog with Sales Tips

A regular Sales Tips Blog reader, named Mark, sent me the following email he received from a company trying to sell him consulting services. He wanted my opinion of the salesperson’s selling skills, or lack thereof.

To: Mark L.
From: Bill N. (not his real identity)
Subject: Please call me in the A.M. tomorrow if you are still interested in my offer
Body of Email: 555-789-9781 (not his real phone)

What’s Going On Here?
You can’t help but notice that the content of the email starts in the subject line (something that is highly unprofessional and overly casual) and the body only contains the phone number that Mark (the prospect) has been instructed to call.

The Context
Mark told me he had been negotiating with this company for about two months when things reached a standstill. There was one small remaining issue keeping him from signing a contract.

They had been tossing the issue around and Mark felt they were getting close to a resolution when suddenly Bill (the salesperson) appeared to try this different (albeit stupid) negotiating tack.

Mark felt the salesperson was brazenly giving him the not-so-subtle message, “The ball is in your court now. If you want to work with me then you call me at the designated time.”

I think Mark had analyzed the situation accurately.

Sales Tips On Why This Is Wrong On So Many Levels
Taking the kiss-my-grits approach to customers and prospects is counterproductive for many reasons. It may make the salesperson feel as if he or she has put the prospect “in his or her place,” but this tactic always backfires in many ways.

• If you’re in sales, you must understand a basic tenet in psychology. People are prideful. The salesperson had given Mark an ultimatum. Mark chose not to respond to this email to make it clear to Bill that he was not going to roll over for this joker.
• It’s entirely too easy for Mark to find a substitute vendor. This salesperson was acting as if he was the only game in town.
• Negotiation can take a long time. As sales professionals we know big deals have a way of dying a few times before they are inked. This was a high six-digit deal and it was unrealistic for the salesperson to think he could close it quickly and on his terms.
• Bill’s email burned the bridge for any further dealings with Mark. Once the bridge is burned in sales, you permanently lose any chance of getting any future business. It also doesn’t do much for one’s reputation in the business community. If Mark wrote to me about it, you can be sure he’s talking to others.
• It demonstrates a total lack of emotional maturity. Do you honestly think Mark would trust Bill to handle a six-digit deal with his company after a stunt like that? No way.
• If a salesperson ever feels the need to level the playing field with a decision maker, then he or she is clearly in the wrong business. It doesn’t work that way in sales.

Deference Versus Confidence
While we don’t want to behave like Bill, we also have to be self-assured with our prospects and customers. It’s a balancing act that can be summed up with two words. We must be confident in our inner dialogue and be deferent in our conversations with decision makers.

Confident: Having no uncertainty about one’s own abilities
Deferent: Showing respect and courtesy

Further reading:

• The Anti Sales Tip

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There is a clear difference in how you sell simple widgets as opposed to more complex products and services. Specific selling techniques and skill sets are required to be effective at selling either of them. What are the two major sales environments and what are their attributes?

Solution Selling (also known as: strategic selling, relationship selling, complex selling, consultative selling and partnership selling)

1. The customer is looking for ROI (Return on Investment) information since the sale frequently represents a capital investment.

2. Because of the size and complexity of the sale and the number of decision makers involved the sales cycle can be long.

3. The relationship with the customer is paramount.

4. This sounds cliché, but the salesperson is really selling a solution to the customer’s perceived needs.

5. Information gathering can consume a substantial amount of time in solution selling; questioning and listening skills are essential.

6. The salesperson will be dealing with high level, if not C-level, decision makers.

Transactional Selling (also known as: commodity selling and retail selling)

1. Success in transactional sales is oftentimes primarily a result of raw sales activity.

2. The primary role of the transactional salesperson is to match the customer’s needs with a product or service.

3. Surprisingly, there have been studies that indicate that the top one percent of transactional salespeople earn more income than the top one percent of solution salespeople. Transactional sales professionals that can manage themselves and their time so extraordinarily in order to sell enormous amounts of products and services are well compensated.

4. The sales cycle for transactional sales is short.

As the products and services that are available to businesses get more complex, the number of solution selling sales professionals continues to grow. With the explosion of ecommerce the number of traditional transactional sales professionals continues to decline. Simply stated, the Internet is replacing many non-value-added order processors. All of this is good news for salespeople; there is an increasing number of more highly paid and rewarding solution selling jobs available.

Whether you are selling commodities in a transactional environment or selling complex services or products in a solutions based sales environment, it is essential that you use the appropriate and most effective selling techniques for what you are selling and to whom you are selling. I’ve seen too many salespeople get this mixed up and use transactional techniques with customers when they should be using relational techniques and vice versa. It is important for sales managers to keep their sales environment in mind when hiring. Moving a salesperson from one type of selling to another can be difficult and frustrating for everyone, especially if the salesperson has many years of experience in primarily one environment.

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