Archive for category: Ask TAA

What’s the role of listening in the sales literature? Here are two examples culled from internet searches:

Successful sales are based on discovering what customers need and providing solutions to these needs. Always focus your questions on moving toward a greater understanding of your customer’s needs.

The secret to selling like a professional is to listen closely to the client. Find out as much as possible that might be relevant to your service. Ask questions about their expectations. Then when you have that knowledge, discuss only the aspects of your service that have a direct bearing on your clients stated needs.

By this view, listening is a key step in a sales process. We listen in order to discover needs. Having discovered the needs, we can then better tune our offerings, or our presentations, to those needs. This allows us to screen out unlikely prospects (improving efficiency) and to better address good prospects (improving effectiveness).

That’s the conventional wisdom. It probably sounds so obvious as to border on the banal. But occasionally, conventional wisdom is wrong. And this is one of those cases.

The greatest value of listening lies not in what is heard, but in the act of listening itself.
To see why, let’s explore the conventional wisdom.

There are three key assumptions in the conventional approach. Every one of them is misleading, and at least partly wrong. They are:

• Selling is about transactions, or about multiple transactions in sequence;
• The purpose of listening is to find out information—in particular, needs;
• The buyer has this information.

In truth:

• Selling is best understood (and done) by anchoring transactions in the context of relationships—not by treating relationships as a phase in a transactional process;
• The value of listening goes well beyond “finding out data;” its greatest value is in disposing the client to engage differently with both the salesperson, and around his or her needs;
• The assumption that the buyer is conscious of his or her needs and will part with them if artfully asked the right questions is a flawed assumption. Buyers aren’t fully conscious of their needs, aren’t necessarily disposed to reveal them, and direct rational inquiry is not the best route to either raised consciousness or enhanced revelation.

Let’s break this down to two issues—sales process models (how we think about selling) and buyer psychology (how buyers think about buying).

SALES PROCESS MODELS

Sales models are ubiquitous in corporate selling. CRM systems are built around them. Sales management is driven by data surrounding them. But almost all sales models are simple linear, sequential models—usually depicted as arrows. Early on in those arrows, we find listening.

The role of “relationships” in those arrows is either non-existent (the model depicts purely transactional sales “events”), depicted as a feedback loop (“go back and repeat from point B”), or is contained in the early-stage process listening step (“listen until rapport is formed; than move to needs-based questioning.”)

But that’s not how it really works. In the real world, relationships function as a substrate, a precondition, a context. Except for a purely cold call, sales do not happen in a vacuum. Farmers don’t plant seed in untended soil, no matter how fertile the ground. They plow it, turn it, fertilize it, water it, and wait for just the right time to plant. That is how really good salespeople treat relationships.

Really successful salespeople are always establishing and deepening relationships with people. Doing so earns them the right to engage in a different form of conversation, around a buyer’s needs and around selling. They use that right with some and not with others; and they use that right at once with some, and later with others.

A really successful salesperson builds relationships with some who may not end up buying. They may build a relationship with someone and engage in selling at a later date.

If you think the “purpose” of building a relationship is to lead you along a process of selling the client, then you are likely to ask questions in order to get answers. Your idea of “listening” will be in service to driving the process model forward.

And your prospect will get the same idea: “He’s listening to me in order to find an opening to best present whatever he’s selling. I’ll go along ias long as it suits me, but I’m on my guard.”

By contrast, if you think the “purpose” of building a relationship has a much looser connection with a sales transaction, then you are likely to ask questions more out of curiosity, aimed solely at getting to know the person or understanding the broader business context—without a specific agenda, transaction or “opening.”

And your prospect will get the same idea: “He’s listening to me genuinely, with some interest in me and in how I see things. This is good, he’s coming to understand me on my terms, not to sell me something. I’m willing to continue talking.”

If you work from a linear process model that makes listening a tactic to achieve a transaction, then you are only listening to hear your pre-conceived ideas. You are, in a nutshell, self-oriented. That is seller-centric selling. And it doesn’t promote trust.

BUYER PSYCHOLOGY

Ask a client what they want, and they’ll tell you “expertise; credentials; someone who’ll meet my needs.” Ask them what their needs are, and they’ll tell you.

But ask really successful salespeople (or honest clients with experience in buying) and they’ll tell you how it really works. Clients only ask for credentials and expertise because they’re not really sure what else to do. In truth, they’d rather get in range with expertise, and then decide based on their trust in the seller.

Clients will tell you their needs because they think they’re supposed to, and because they’re afraid if they don’t, you’ll take advantage of them. But if you can engage them in honest discussion, they’ll admit their uncertainties, and discuss, engage in and evolve their views of what their needs are.

It all depends on why you’re listening.

If you’re listening to hear an answer to a predetermined question, then you will hear the “canned” definitions of needs that clients have prepared for you. You’ll hear their request for credentials and expertise at face value, and not hear the undertone in the question, or in the bored way they listen to your answer.

Because what clients really want to talk about is what everyone wants to talk about. Themselves. When someone says, “tell me about yourself,” they’re just being polite—whether it’s on a date, at a social event, or in a sales call. The right answer is not to tell them about your vast experience with other clients—it is to get them talking about themselves. And to listen as they do so.

THE QUALITY OF LISTENING

The usual form of listening is conditioned by sales models looking for answers, and by flawed views of buyer psychology focused on surface dialogue. What is required is a different quality of listening.

The main reason for listening to customers is to allow the customer to be heard. Really heard. As in, actually being paid attention to by another human being.

This kind of listening is listening for the sake of listening. Listening to understand, period—no strings attached, no links back to your product, no refined problem statements. Because that’s what people in relationships, at their best, really do. They listen because they want to know what the other person thinks. About whatever the other person is interested in talking about.

This kind of listening validates other people. It connects us to them. It provides meaning. And—among other things—it sets the stage for sellers and buyers to interact—if that is the right thing to happen next.

Brooks and Travesano (“You’re Working too Hard to Make the Sale”) note that people greatly prefer to buy what they need from those who understand what it is that they want.

Read that over again, carefully. People prefer to buy what they need (stuff they’re going to buy anyway), from those who understand them on the basis of what they want (things in life they’d love to have—wishes, hopes, desires.)

You don’t even have to give them what they want; it’s enough to understand them.

To bring it full circle back to listening: Relationships are the context for successful selling. Relationships are based on trust; they predispose us to engage in qualitatively different kinds of sales conversations. And listening—unrestricted, unbounded, listening for its own sake—is the way we develop such relationships.

And therein lies the paradox. The most powerful way to sell depends on unlinking listening from selling—and instead, just listening. Listening not as a step in a sales process, and not as a search for answers to questions. Listening not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.

The point of listening is not what you hear, but the act of listening itself.

MAKING IT WORK

Here are 5 tips to listening this way. Number five is the most powerful.

1. Ditch the distractions. You cannot multitask undiscovered. Being multitasked feels insulting. Close the door. Face away from the window. Blank the computer screen. Turn the blackberry over. Now—pay attention.

2. Use your whole body. Lean toward the speaker—even on the phone. Use facial expressions. Use hands and arms, shake your head, use ‘non-verbal’ verbals. This improves your listening—and indicates you are listening.

3. Keep it about them—not you. Use open-ended, not closed, questions. Let them tell their own story—don’t use them as foils for your hypotheses.

4. Acknowledge frequently. Paraphrase data, empathize with emotions. Make sure you are hearing both correctly; make sure they know you are.

5. Think out loud. The biggest obstacle to listening is your own thinking. Be courageous—postpone your thinking until they’re done talking. Be willing to think out loud—with the client. Doing so role-models collaboration and transparency, which reinforces trust. I hear you. I value you. I respond to you, with no hidden agenda. I trust you. You can trust me.

That’s the message of listening.

I googled “sales objections,” and got 43,000 hits. Amazon yields 80 references. It’s a popular topic—objections are what we fear most when we think of “selling.”

The titles indicate how “objection-handling” is viewed. 90% of the verbs that go with “objection” are either “handling” or “overcoming.” (Occasional mention: “eliminating,” “crushing”). And why not? How dare those clients “object” to our wonderful propositions!

All those verbs ooze negativity. The very language we use suggests that “objections” are the enemy—something nasty to be overcome, gotten rid of, dealt with—better yet, conquered, crushed or destroyed.

The way most of us would view having to handle snakes.

Negativity

Here are some typical negative quotes from various selling books. (Note they almost all are based on tangible products businesses, rather than professional services—which makes them sound all the more jarring to a services client’s ear).

On the role of objections:

An objection from a customer can and should be overcome by the closer. There should be no excuse for not overcoming a legitimate, honest objection from the customer. This is the closer’s job: to provide answers, get an agreement, and conquer (close).

A typical logic structure of an objection-handling session:

Salesperson: “What is the reason you are not buying?”

Client: [states his objection].

Salesperson: “Is that the only reason?”

Client: “Yes.”

Salesperson: “Then, if…[eliminates objection]…would you buy?”

Client: “Yes.”

Several elected objection-handling techniques:

The Boomerang: yes, it is expensive, but I don’t think you would want to buy your wife a cheap present.

The Conditional Close: you say you want a red one. If I can phone up and get you one, will you take it today?

The Deflection: Yes, I see what you mean…mmm…Now let me show you the range of finishes you can have…

The Feel/felt/found Model: I understand you feel about that. Many others have felt the same way. And what they have found is that….

These are manipulative, yes—but that’s not the point. They all place us in opposition to the client. They cast the client either as the enemy, or as a hill to be taken.

From this standpoint, “objections” are bound to feel like handling snakes.

The usual, negative, approach to objections is part of a wrong set of beliefs, including:

• The purpose of business is to make a profit
• The purpose of selling is to get the revenue
• The purpose of closing is to get the sale
• The purpose of objection-handling is to get the close.

You can’t get rid of the snake-handling feel without getting rid of this snakes’ nest of bad thinking.

Here’s an alternative, positive set of ideas:

• The purpose of business is to add value where none existed
• The purpose of selling is to jointly articulate and point the way to greater value
• Closing reflects agreement on a common view of the greater value to be created
• Objections vaguely indicate lack of agreement on a view of a greater value to be created.

Rethinking Objections

At the outset of a professional relationship, we bring some strong ideas about how to add value. So do our clients. This is as it should be. Working collaboratively with the client to take the best of both perspectives creates the maximum value.

The concept of “objections” undermines that potential synergy. It suggests that selling is a struggle of ideas, a contest of wills, and that our job is to persuade the client of the superiority of ours. Hence we get objection-“handling.” Like snake-“handling”, it has overtones of danger—if we don’t know the tricks of savvy handlers, we’re likely to get bitten.

But we don’t need to go there. If we can approach the client with an open-minded, curiosity-driven, adventuresome, mutual attitude of discovery—then “objections” no longer look like snakes. They are simply emotional statements about the buyer’s readiness. They are information, not attacks.

Of course, there will always be issues of timing, budget, politics and alignment. We need to proactively identify them along with the client. To do any less is unprofessional.

Then there are the issues your tummy tells you are emotional, not rational. Price is a common one, but any objection can be nominally about one thing, and in fact about something else. Most objections have multiple layers.

The temptation is to treat every “objection” as being about what it claims to be. But people buy for emotional reasons, then justify it later in rational terms. We must deal with the emotional underlying the rational.

Sometimes this is best done overtly (“I get the feeling you’re not happy about this; can you say more about it?”) Other times, it is enough to tacitly acknowledge the feelings. The point is to deal with the underlying reality.

Speaking the New Language

We and our clients get stuck in the old language of “objection-handling” and “closing.” We need new language to communicate new approaches, but also to signal ourselves and others that something fundamental has shifted.

Here are some phrases to get rid of, and some new ones to add.

1. Get rid of the word “objections” itself. The term suggests a negative reaction to something we proposed—but this shouldn’t be about us! Let’s start with the client, not with us. Start with the idea of a client’s concerns—not ours.

2. Every client is concerned about change itself. They simply want to know that they have covered all the bases, that they haven’t left anything out. Our role is to help them make sure they have thought of everything—and, where there are answers, to articulate them. And where there are not, to articulate that too.

Your client does not want an advocate, but a trusted advisor. Help them by uncovering all their concerns, not by “handling” their “objections.”

3. Get rid of—completely—the old “if I could meet this objection, then would you buy?” language. It is manipulative, but more importantly, it is all about you and your objectives—not about the client.

4. In initial conversations, start a joint running list of issues and concerns that the client has. Share that list at all times—and work on in it jointly. Introduce issues with the phrase, “If I were in your shoes, I imagine I’d be concerned about…” Make sure that you include some emotional and political issues on your list, e.g. “I would imagine you’d be concerned about how your internal clients will perceive the price you end up paying; is that right?”

5. At several points—particularly after resolving some concerns—look jointly at the list and say, “How are we coming along here? Is this process helping the decision? Are we meeting your time schedule? Are there any concerns that have emerged since we last talked that we need to get onto the list?”

6. If at any point you sense hesitation, say, “I sense that you’ve got some other concern here that we haven’t written down. Is that right? Is it the process itself? Tell me how you’re feeling.” You need to use direct, honest talk here, otherwise the client can withdraw—in which case the trusted relationship you’re working to cultivate can fall down. Honest, unselfish concern is the antidote.

Your objective is not to handle the objection, or close the deal, or get the sale. Those things happen naturally, as outcomes—as long as you don’t make them goals. Making them goals turns your client into objects, and you end up handling them like snakes.

Don’t handle objections; help define and solve client concerns. Let go your concern about the outcome—paradoxically, that willingness the outcome go will improve your outcomes.