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