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Awarding Sales

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A few weeks ago, I was included on a list as a Top 50 Sales & Marketing Influencer for 2012.

I appreciate that. I’m going to put it on our website’s front page for a little while, and I want to thank the good people at TopSalesWorld.com who put together the list.

I also want to say a few things about awards, about who’s on awards lists – and about selling.

Who’s On the List

I’m not a full-time sales guy. There are folks on this list who have devoted their lives to furthering the cause of sales, and I’m a little sheepish about being included in their company.

I’m not just talking about heavyweights like Tony Alessandra, Mark Benioff, Jeffrey Gitomer, Seth Godin, and Neil Rackham (Neil gets my nod for uber-guru).

I’m also talking about some really talented thinkers and doers. Do not consider this list exhaustive, because I’m only going to mention some whom I personally know fairly well, and therefore can personally attest to being great:

Ian Brodie

John Doerr and Mike Schultz

Anthony Iannarino

Jill Konrath

Dave Stein

Paul McCord, a senior statesman also on the list, noted to me the conspicuous absence of Zig Ziglar. I myself note the equally curious absence of David A. Brock.

Still, let’s not get all tizzied up. No list will suit all preferences, else there’d be no need for a list.  But what’s interesting is the idea of sales as a topic for a list.

Being Great at Sales

Selling is a fascinating application of human social behavior. It can be done in an anti-social manner (which is where we get our universal negative stereotypes about pushy, greedy, hard-sell salespeople).

But sales is also the locus of some of the best of human behavior. Sales, done rightly, is the art of improving other people’s lives, while getting paid a living for doing so.

I’m aware that this definition also includes therapists (potentially), as well as lawyers, accountants and consultants (again with the caveat). Rightly so.

Human beings interact with each other both well, and badly. Most of us manage many examples of each in the course of a day.

  • Bad interactions are usually based on fear and blame, and manifest as attempts to get others to do our bidding
  • Good interactions are usually based on beneficence and curiosity, and manifest as attempts to help others.

Because we interact on the basis of reciprocity, bad behavior begets more bad behavior, and good begets good. (Anyone detecting a parallel with spirituality here goes to the head of the class).

Which means: the best sales result from motivations that are the opposite of self-interest. I ask you: is that not a fascinating paradox?

Why Sales is Fascinating

Many salespeople are fond of saying, “Nothing happens until someone sells something.” This I find mundane.

Much more interesting is that sales is the theater where we act out our most human roles in the business world. Not finance, not manufacturing, not administration: sales. Sales is quintessentially human in its struggle to overcome our own limitations, and to become better people.

The really great authors know this. Neil Rackham wrote The Book about the necessity of listening before suggesting solutions. Jill Konrath writes about respecting the pressures on our customers’ lives. Ian Brodie lives the principles of the curious and gracious salesperson.

I really am honored to be included on this list, and that’s no sales pitch.

 

 

 

Building Blocks of Trust

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My oldest son, a cabinet-maker, custom designed and built a cabinet for a customer, who is a contractor and also refers work to him. The customer gave guidance on the specifications. They agreed on a price and within a couple of weeks the item was built and delivered. Then came what often happens with construction.  The customer wasn’t happy. Discussions began.

Things Happen

In this case, drawers designed to open and close with specified slides were noisier than the customer wanted. He asked my son to install different (and more costly) slides to reduce the noise. My son thought the customer had specified this design and that the drawers were quiet already. So, he did not think any change was needed.

Has this ever happened to you? Think about fee disputes, for example.  Here are approaches some people take:

  • Ignore the issue, and let the relationship lag (“I don’t want to deal with it”)
  • Get angry and self-righteous (“It’s his fault, not mine”)
  • Give in, and make concessions (“I’ll just give him what he wants”)

Trust Principles in Action

My son agonized for more than a week over what to do. He did not want to spend the time or money replacing the slides because he thought he had done everything right.  Yet, he valued his relationship with the customer.

While he appeared to ignore the issue for a short time, he opted for a different approach, which looked a lot like applying the Trust Principles.

My son then suggested a way to compromise, sharing responsibility for the costs and time involved in fixing the problem.  After a brief discussion, they reached a resolution.

How many times do we choose to ignore, get angry or give in, rather than face the issue head on, using a principled approach? Which works better?

Wants or Needs? Dylan and the Stones on Sales

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If you’re in sales or business development, you’ve probably heard the distinction between wants and needs. What’s the difference?  And what’s the role of each to someone buying?

I checked with the well-known sales consulting firm of Jagger, Richards & Dylan.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Never mind Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, let’s talk about Mick Jagger’s. After all, this was the 100th greatest song of all time; whereas Maslow, as far as I know, never even made the Billboard Charts.

The tagline is “but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need.” In other words, wants are higher, deeper and often more unattainable than needs.

There’s more than one way to define the difference between wants and needs, but I’ll settle for the definition used by the Greatest Rock ‘n Roll Band in history. But if that’s not good enough for you – wait, there’s more!

Bob Zimmerman, Salesman

Bob Dylan, from Blonde on Blonde, also wrote about sales:

An’ she says, ‘Your debutante just knows what you need; but I know what you want!’

Stuck Inside of Mobile, with the Memphis Blues Again

Dylan and Jagger are pouring from the same bottle. Here too, the idea of one’s wants transcend that of one’s needs.

Needs are tangible things we’ve got to have, necessary conditions: toothpaste, bicycles, audits, CRM systems. Wants are aspirational: hopes, wishes, dreams, desires, visions.

The Roles of Wants and Needs

Which should you sell to? What do buyers relate to? The right answer (it’s remarkable how often this is the right answer to seeming quandaries) is “both, at different points.”

Here are a few hints.

1.    People buy with the heart, then rationalize it with the brain.

In other words, sell the wants and let everyone talk about the needs they resolved by making that decision. The wants are dealt with more personally, arm-around-shoulder; the needs are what you tell the purchasing committee after the fact about why you did the deal.

2.    People prefer to buy what they need from those who understand what they want.

In other words, if you’re going to sell stuff that people need, first tap into their wants. You don’t even have to give them what they want, you just have to be someone who can tap into it. That makes you a seller someone wants to buy from.  The greatest exponent of this idea, I find, was Bill Brooks (see my interview with his son Jeb).

Basically, you need to touch people on both fronts.

  • If you only sell to needs, you’re a features-only kind of person limited to competing on price.
  • If you sell only based on wants, you might do well in designer bricks or perfume, but forget about selling complex systems.

Be well-rounded. Listen to both the Stones and Dylan.  Until you do, you’re just Blowin’ in the Wind, and will get No Satisfaction in sales.

Meet Anthony Iannarino: Pragmatic, Insightful, Focused. (He also loves our book.)

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Anthony Iannarino, creator of The Sales Blog, recently reviewed our new book, The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust. Anthony is a thoughtful subject matter expert on what he calls “the new art of sales and sales management.” We’re pleased to introduce Anthony to you, if you haven’t met him already.

Adventures in Selling

Once again proving that my resistance to Twitter is often misguided, Charlie and Anthony first “met” in the Twittersphere, and when I joined the party Charlie suggested I follow Anthony. It’s not the first time Charlie gave me good advice.

Anthony’s blog posts are pragmatic, insightful, and focused. He writes daily on adventures in sales and selling, sales management, the sales process, and what it takes to succeed. But what really resonates for me about Anthony’s posts is the drum he beats about the underlying belief system that leads to success in sales. Some of my favorites include:

When Anthony’s not blogging, he’s juggling myriad roles: President and Chief Sales officer for SOLUTIONS Staffing, a best-in-class regional staffing service based in Columbus, Ohio;  Managing Director of B2B Sales Coach & Consultancy, a boutique sales coaching and consulting company where he works to help salespeople and sales organizations improve and reach their full potential; and father of a thirteen-year-old boy and twin eleven-year-old girls. He has plenty to keep him occupied and we appreciate the time he took to read our book.

His review of the book, by the way, is Classic Anthony: pointed and thorough. Read it for yourself and find out what chapters he recommends zeroing in on. And don’t forget to turn to page 205 when you get your copy to read Anthony’s story about when to walk away.

Follow Anthony on Twitter, connect to him on LinkedIn, or friend him on Facebook.

Working On Trust: David A. Brock

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To anyone who doubts the power of social media, I tell them how I came to know David A. Brock. Dave’s resume is old-school – IBM, Tektronix – and I have a feeling he’s even (gasp) older than I am, but Dave is all over twitter (http://twitter.com/davidabrock), he writes a fine blog, and he knows the inner workings of WordPress.

Much more importantly – David is just a delightful human being. Generous, warm, self-effacing, quick to pick up the phone, always about the customer. Dave is a superb management consultant.  Nominally, his subject is sales; in truth, it’s about making business and organizations better.  And he is very, very good at it.

Working on Trust

Which is why I’m so pleased that Dave interviewed me and Andrea Howe about our new book.

In the interview, Dave gets the conversation going about the role of trust in sales coaching.  We also talk about what someone can do when stuck in the company of untrustworthy others.  We finish up talking about what can actually be done to make customers trust us (hint: think Bonnie Raitt).

If you aren’t familiar with Dave Brock, please get to know him. His blog is called Making a Difference.  I can attest that he does.

Annals of Bad Selling: The Sweat Interview Test

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Have you ever been run through a ‘sweat’ test interview?  Maybe it’s a sales call, maybe a presentation. A senior person plays the tough-as-nails client. They make you sweat it. And—if you’re good enough—you win.

If You Think You Won Your Sweat Interview—You Lost

Think this through with me.  Why were you sweating?  Why was your senior’s goal to make you sweat? And what does it mean to say you “won”—who’d you beat, anyway?

The answer, unfortunately, is obvious.  The objective is to get the sale. You sweat because you’re afraid you might screw up. If you screw up, you lose the sale. You must win–by not sweating.  The way to not sweat is to:

    • never lose your cool
    • have a ready answer at hand to all objections
    • be sharper than the other guy
    • parry every thrust with a counter that advances the sale.

If you believe all this, then let me suggest you believe one other thing too: the customer is the enemy.

Since When Did the Client Become Your Enemy?

‘Wait,’ you’re thinking, ‘that’s not me. That’s somebody else. I know to look for win-win, be on the customer’s side, be client-centric and customer-friendly. I’m way past thinking the client is the enemy.’

Allow me to push back a little, please.

If the client is not the enemy, then why are you sweating in the first place? If the client isn’t the enemy, then isn’t the best outcome for the client simply the best outcome?  If you do a great job exploring with the client what the right answer is, shouldn’t you be happy with the result, whatever that is?  Why should your ego be engaged on such a mission?

And let’s talk about your senior. Why are they subjecting you to something like fraternity hazing?  How is making you sweat supposed to help the client?

The Best Selling? No Sweat

Here’s the best way to rehearse for your sales call, your big presentation, your big meeting. Say to yourself something like the following:

There is absolutely no reason to sweat.  Any sweat on my part means I’m forgetting who my friends are and what my purpose is.  My clients are my friends, including my not-as-yet-paying clients, and my purpose is to help my friends do better.

If I consistently do that, I’ll become known—very quickly—as someone who speaks the truth, who leads with client concern, who isn’t attached to closing a deal, who can be trusted to give recommendations in the best interest of the client—even if on occasion it doesn’t result in a sale for him.

A sales call or a big meeting is a happy event; it’s where we get to move the ball forward together with our clients.  It’s where we jointly add value and make things better.  Why should I sweat over the chance to have an interaction like that?

And if you’re a senior person about to give a ‘sweat’ test interview to someone, do them, and you, a favor. Teach them why there’s no reason to sweat.  The best sales come about from people learning that you are a trustworthy person, and responding in kind.

Which they usually do. And those who don’t, you can smilingly refer to your competitors.  Who can then practice their sweat interviews.

Advertising on Trust Matters Blog?

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I’d like some readers’ advice.

I received the following email:

Hello!

I’m contacting you on behalf of a client who is interested in making a contribution to help support your site in exchange for a simple contextual link of a word or phrase somewhere within trustedadvisor.com

Let me know if you offer these types of arrangements and if you have any rates. If you’re unsure, please ask and I would be happy to provide specific details and an offer. The link would be natural and be to a useful resource.

Thank you,

[Name]

And here’s what I wrote back:

Dear [Name],

Thanks for the offer, I appreciate the recognition.

As a site whose subject matter is trust, we have to be cleaner than Caesar’s wife. I have decided, at least thus far, that the easiest way to do so is to simply not accept advertising in any form.

I appreciate the offer, but we’ll have to pass.

Sincerely,

Charlie Green

Now, there’s nothing wrong with advertising.  Nor with affiliate marketing, nor with sales commissions, or any of hundreds of other commercial relationships.  This is not a holier-than-thou blogpost.

Having the no-ads principle has certainly made things easier. As with all values, having them greatly simplifies decisions.

But the truth is, I look wistfully at some sites that do quite well, even extremely well, by the added revenue they are able to generate.  It would be nice.

I like to think there are lines that can be drawn.  For example, the pay-for-contextual-link proposition above could pretty easily be a slippery slope unless you DRINK DIET COKE LIKE I DO ha ha. (Actually just the lime kind, and only occasionally).

In fact, there are probably some commercial links that would represent a positive benefit to the readership of this blog. Or so I think I could argue, though no examples come immediately to mind.

And I also feel no great need to take a ridiculous pledge of no advertising forever, because I’m not so smart as to think I know everything; I reserve the right to get smarter as I get older more experienced.

Your Advice

So I’d like your advice. Is it a good thing to keep this page pristine non-commercial?  Do values have to be absolute to be of value?  Is this a brand thing?

Or are there reasonable approaches to integrating commerce to a website (mainly the blog) based on trust?  Can I get a little mortgage money goin’ here, huh? Can useful lines be drawn?

What do you think?  I really do value your perspective and advice.  Thank you in advance.

How to Sell to the C-Suite

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We’re pleased to announce the release of our latest ebook: How to Sell to the C-Suite (pdf).

It’s the second in the new Trusted Advisor Fieldbook series by Charles H. Green and Andrea P. Howe.

Each ebook provides a snapshot of content from The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, which is jam-packed with practical, hands-on strategies to dramatically improve your results in sales, relationship management, and organizational performance.

How to Sell to the C-Suite reveals:

  • What’s different about selling to C-level executives
  • A powerful 3-part preparation plan for C-suite sales
  • 9 best practices for successful C-suite selling.

Did you miss out on Volume 1 of The Fieldbook Series eBooks? Get it while it’s still available: 15 Ways to Build Trust…Fast!

Take a look and let us know what you think.

If you’re not already receiving these in your inbox, please sign up here.

Still Afraid of the Sales Monster Under the Bed?

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I was still afraid of the Sales Monster Under the Bed when I was 32.

I was 6 years into my career in management consulting.  It was becoming clear that the road to advancement no longer lay in more expertise. Instead, it lay in what was euphemistically called “business development.”

I was no dummy. I knew what “business development” meant: the dreaded Sales Monster.

Business Development, the Euphemism

You know something’s wrong when people cloak a supposedly reputable activity in the passive voice. If they couldn’t even look you in the face when they said “business development,” it proved they really meant “sales.”  Blech.

I knew I had to do business development.  But what was it?  And what was the least horrific way to go about it?

You know the list:

  • Write white papers
  • Write articles
  • Network
  • Go to industry association meetings
  • Make cold calls
  • Explore existing client relationships
  • Do mailings
  • Send holiday cards.

Holiday cards felt a little intrusive. At least white papers relied on expertise. The other steps were too horrible to contemplate.

The Sales Monster

In retrospect, my fear of sales was self-fear, aided by the intangible nature of professional services.  Lawyers, accountants and actuaries, I later found, all suffered from the same malaise.

It just all felt so personal. I had joined consulting because it seemed a meritocratic society of the intellect. The implied promise was I’d get rewarded for being smart.

That promise was being broken. Suddenly it was personal. Clients weren’t just buying expertise, they were buying me. Or not. That wasn’t just unfair, it violated my belief that content mattered.

Worst of all, of course, was if they didn’t buy. It was hard to rationalize a loss; it meant, ineluctably that They Didn’t Like Me. I understood Sally Fields’ Oscar acceptance speech very well.

Vanquishing the Sales Monster

It took me 15 more years to realize that every thought I’d had about sales was wrong. And it was more a process than an epiphany.  There were a few books along the way that helped:

But it was more life experiences than books that changed my view.  If you come right down to it—I had to grow up.  I had to develop and change as a person in order to understand the keys to sales.

I had to recognize the ultimately paradoxical nature of sales: the best way to sell is to stop trying to sell, and to focus instead on helping others get what they wanted.

Learning the Truth

You cannot learn this truth by reading this blog. Or by reading any book or article. You probably won’t learn it from anyone telling you.  It seems to me that we all learn things the hard way—from our own experience.  And my experience is that hard lessons, negative examples, bad experiences, are better teachers than good ones. Sad but true.

But sometimes, someone can say something in a way that makes it click for you.  It can pull together your own learnings and make a light bulb a little brighter. And that can help a lot.

So, here’s my own Top Twelve list of ways that I found to say something that I found meaningful. I hope one of them can turn on a little light bulb for you.

12 Insights on Trust-Based Selling
    1. Closing the Book on Closing
    2. Handling Sales Rejection Without Becoming a Narcissist
    3. How Sales Contests Kill Sales
    4. I Can’t Make You Love Me If You Don’t
    5. Sales, Narcissism and Therapists
    6. Selling Professional Services
    7. 10 Myths About Selling Professional Services [pdf]
    8. What Clients Really Want
    9. What to Say When the Client Says Your Price is Too High [pdf]
    10. When to Ditch the Elevator Speech and Take the Escalator or the Stairs
    11. Why Nobody Cares About You (and You Should be Glad They Don’t!)
    12. Why Should We Buy From You?  Good Question! [pdf]

If you’d like more help in vanquishing your own sales monster, you can also consult my book Trust-Based Selling (as the Trust-Based Selling print edition or the  Trust-Based Selling ebook for Kindle).

If the Sales Monster still lives under your bed, remember: it doesn’t have to be that way.

Showdown at the Used Car Corral

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They wanted to sell a used truck. My son wanted to buy one for his business. He asked me to come along to help negotiate.

An enticing ad had gotten us onto their lot. At this point, the truck was pretty much pre-sold. All that was left was to agree on a price that worked for my son, and to pass our mechanic’s inspection. Done deal.

That is…until they decided they had to sell us.

My son was an eager buyer. But instead of asking my son about his business, or even why he wanted the truck, the salesman was all about getting the sale.

The Negotiation

It started with a little lie: “There’s another customer looking at that truck now”

This annoyed my son. Claiming scarcity only works when it’s true. The only other folks on the lot were looking at cars, not trucks.

Then the salesman began to negotiate price. It turns out that the trade-in value was within my son’s range, but my son wanted a lower final price. After some discussion, the price went down a little and then I gave our bottom line number. It was ok. The salesman then stuck out his hand and said: “This is our final price. Deal?”

The “presumptive close,” accompanied by a smug smile. It just didn’t work.

He was all about trying to sell a truck; he couldn’t see this was about my son buying one.

Despite his eagerness, my son ignored the salesman’s attempt to close. We said he’d buy if the price was really final, with no additional document prep fee–and, we still needed our mechanic to look at the truck.

“EVERYONE pays the documentation fee,” said the salesman.

Funny; after more discussion, the price was reduced by the amount of the fee. Then came the final issue – our mechanic’s approval.

“Our policy is that we don’t let cars leave the lot for mechanic’s inspections. Very few of our customers even ask to have cars looked at by their own mechanics,” said the salesman.

My son called our mechanic from the lot. The mechanic said he’d never heard of a dealer taking that position.

My son got more doubtful by the minute.

The salesman explained that the reason customers aren’t concerned with having used cars seen by their own mechanic is because they buy the dealer’s extended warranty which protects them. Another follow-on service for us to buy, in other words.

We said no, and got up to leave, whereupon the salesman made another offer: “We’ll give you another $500 off.”

I said my son would pay the price without the additional $500 off, as long as the mechanic could OK the truck, but he couldn’t buy without that inspection. The response: “Do you want to put down a deposit? There’s another customer interested, and the deposit will hold it for you.”

They just weren’t listening. At this we gave up and left, disappointed and discouraged. My son really wanted to buy the truck. But we understood they had a policy, and we accepted that was endgame.

But Wait There’s More…

Then, two minutes after driving out, my son’s cell phone rang. Now the dealer was willing to bring the truck to our mechanic–a request we never even made. This last sale attempt convinced my son: “I wouldn’t buy a truck from them at all. I don’t trust them.”

A Few Simple Guidelines

How did this seller permanently lose such an eager customer? What are the lessons this dealer can learn?

  1. Just stop with the lying. Just stop it. Why do dealers lie so much?. Lying loses trust, and trust loses sales.
  2. Don’t fake scarcity. Yes it’s used a lot as a sales tactic. That doesn’t make it right.
  3. Make sure policies are grounded in some principle that is important. “You can’t take the truck to your mechanic” was a policy. And if you’re going to claim you have a policy, at least have the good sense to stick to it.
  4. Stop with the closing. Good closing happens when the buyer is ready to buy. It doesn’t happen because the seller says “deal!”
  5. Listen to your customers. Should it really be that hard?

I guess it’s not all bad. My son got to see how trusting (or not trusting) the salesman can affect a decision to buy even more than the object itself. I’m pretty glad about that.