Multiple Perspectives and Selling

One of my favorite scenes is this:

Imagine a sales rep that arrives to a sales interview. He is motivated, smiling, his teeth are shining white and everything in him is in place. The shoes, the breath, the nails, the hair, the shirt and the tie. He oozes confidence. His prospect receives him and points a chair inviting him to have a seat. He sits and extends his business card and, after some pleasantries, starts his presentation.

Motivated, impeccable, perfectly rehearsed, he flows through it. He starts with a brief introduction, talks about the company he represents, then moves to talk about the features, then the advantages and closes with the benefits of his product. He talks non-stop until the moment arrives and asks the client if he has any questions and then, ask for the business. He knows that when he tries to close the sale it is 'objections' time, the moment for which almost every sales rep has prepared for.
'This is the most important part, to learn how to overcome the objection,' says one manager. 'The more objections the client makes the closer to the YES you are', says another manager.  'Objections are not solved, are dissolved', says a third one. The seller has prepared thoroughly how to handle them, how to answer them. It's like if he's waiting for this moment. Now, here he is and after waiting for some seconds, with a big smile, asks: 'So, what do we do Mr. Client?', and the client replies: "Please leave your information with me, I will review it and I'll call you if I have any question or if I need anything. Thank you for coming." Of course the seller insists: 'When do you think you are going to review the info?', 'When can I call you back?' or 'Please let me know if you have any doubt.' And the client says: 'Yes, sure! Let me review it and I will call you back. Thanks again for coming.' And while he's talking he's is walking to the door inviting our sales rep to leave, kindly.

Then comes the analysis with another sales rep or with the sales manager:
-"He was interested. He told me that he was going to review the info and then call me back."
-"When I was talking to him, he was nodding all the time, that means that he was paying close attention to what I was saying and that he liked my presentation and my product, he will call."
 And some more. Given that he's well trained he will call back to the client in one or two weeks, strict follow up, and no sale will be closed.

Now, this is not an exercise about what went wrong in this sales interview or what sales techniques he is not using and could have used to get better results. No. Why? Because I know that you can, while reading, guess what happened and what exactly he could have done different to get different results. Of course, if you want to go that way, we can do that but in other opportunity. You can write a comment in the 'comments' section and we can go from there. I want to approach this scenario from a different perspective.

Perception, perspective and understanding.

Let me go directly to a question:
-from which perspective did the seller make his presentation?
Let me tell you: from his own.  A lot of sales reps never consider that, while doing their presentation or while conducting a sales interview, there will be at least 2 perceptions. One, his and two, his prospect's.  Yes! His prospect perceives too. Two different perspectives, two different ways to perceive the world.
Sales reps assume automatically and unconsciously that theirs is the only one that matters and counts and most of them, never stop to ask themselves these questions:

-'How is the prospect perceiving me?'
-'How's he perceiving/experiencing the presentation?'
-'Is he going to understand my words?''
-'How can I craft the one that will match his understanding?'

No, they just go on and on and on. They do the perfect presentation according to... themselves. Others do their presentation based on what they have told them to do and not with what it's happening in front of them.
His presentation, in anyway, included any type of participation of the client but, what's more important, didn't include how the prospect perceives. The seller presents from his view, his understanding of the world.

Now, how do you think his presentation could have ended if the sales representative considered for one minute the prospect's perspective? Lets explore further, what would have happened if the sales rep were able to, not only to perceive the client's perspective but craft his sales presentation according to it? 
You think it could have been a different one? With different results? Not only experts, but clients and data confirm that when a sales rep crafts his presentation according to the prospect's communication style, the probabilities of closing the sale go from 13% to 75%.

This is one of the main reasons why sales training is useless.  It doesn't train them to 'read' the prospect so they can craft their presentation accordingly. No need to remember that not only every sales rep is different but that each one of his clients have different internal strategies to buy.
Not everybody perceives the same nor buys the same.
Using the client's perspective helps the seller, experience confirms, not only to have a positive presentation, but to increase his closing ratio.
If you think that this is something that you want to learn more about, please write to: ramon.ruizg@gmail.com

"Can you tell me why they don't sell?" Part II

Now, the other side of the coin.

Some time ago, I had several conversations with a sales manager from the financial industry in Canada.  My purpose in this post is, while in my previous post I wrote about a sales manager that was willing to find out why her sales team wasn't able to meet their goals and do whatever was required to solve the situation, to describe the opposite situation: a sales manager that wasn't and didn't.

When we first met, his question was, in essence the same: "Why they don't sell?" but articulated in a different way:

"-I still can't believe why they don't sell! Look, I have four sales reps. From these four, only two sell something, the other two don't sell anything. In fact, both have been without production the last 6 months. I don't know how they are paying their bills, how they live. Maybe they have a different activity, I don't know."

The last sentence was the one, that again, revealed what's happening with him and his 'team'.

When a sales rep is promoted to sales manager, is because he is an excellent producer but, sometimes, the company doesn't verify if he has the right and very basic communication skills. They don't know if a sales manager is able to articulate a question, to find out what's happening with the ones that are not selling, to do something with his blindness and the sales reps'. You know, an excellent producer doesn't mean an excellent sales manager. On the other side this sales manager lacks power. What do I mean? He doesn't have the ability to produce action in himself or in others. But lets go to the main dialog.

I'm the coach (C) and he is the sales manager (SM).

SM -"Really, I don't know how they pay their bills. Really. Two of them haven't closed anything in the last 6 months. Could you believe that?"
C - "Do you know why they haven't?"
SM - "No, not really." (I notice that my question surprises him a little.)
C -"Why haven't you asked them?"
SM - "I don't feel OK. The last months have been rough for me. My mood isn't the appropriate one and besides, the company doesn't like us to fire anyone."
C -"I'm not asking you to fire anyone, not even suggesting it. Just asking why you haven't asked them yet."
SM - "Well, I don't know, now that you ask, I don't have an answer for that. Well, maybe because I haven't felt well in the last months and for fear that, if I talk to them, they're going to quit. The company doesn't like that."
C - "What do you think could happen if you ask them?"
SM -"Well, the company doesn't like losing people. It's a very painful and long process to hire one financial advisor so if I talk to them, it could be interpreted that I'm going to fire them."
C - "What do you know about coaching?"
SM -"The company sent us to Palm Beach, California for a coaching training but, we didn't take it seriously, I must confess."
C - "And what do you remember from that training?
SM -" That I need to talk to them. Honestly, I don't know what exactly I'm going to find."
C - "Really? What do you think you're going to find?"
SM - "Why don't you coach them? I see that you like doing it. Do you want to coach them? Maybe we can do something. Let me talk to them and see if they're open to receive coaching from you. How much per session?"
C - "Before we consider that possibility let me explain you something. Experts and experience confirm that one of the most important things that a sales manager can do to mobilize his sales organization is to 'talk' to them. Why? Just to persuade them to do the things that are required to be done. What I have found is that if a sales manager doesn't talk to them, their little voice is. What voice? You know it don't you? Well, if you don't talk to them, this voice is going to and you are seeing now the results. Now, about me coaching them, is better if we design for you this 1st conversation with them instead of me having it. You are their sales manager.
SM - "I know but sometimes it helps if it's somebody from outside..."

...and finally, we agreed that if I was going to coach them, or at least to have an initial conversation, he was going to be present and then I was going to coach him to coach them. But, he was going to call me when he had the OK with his sales reps.

Nothing happened. I called him to follow up and he say that they didn't want to pay and that one of them, the girl, finally quit. He promised to call me in the future.

He didn't.

He's no more a sales manager.

If you think that you or your company experiences this type of situation and want to solve it, write to: ramon.ruizg@gmail.com