Busting the Sales Myths


There are three sales myths that some salespeople still believe. I find it hard to believe; but I guess I shouldn’t because it fits with the delusional behaviour of many salespeople. The same delusional behaviour that sees them spending most of their time with clients who will never justify the return on investment - or sees them in a burst of enthusiasm producing sales projections that are a triumph of optimism over reality. Be honest, we’re all guilty of it.

So, here are the three myths that need to be disposed of immediately.

1. The market is a level playing field
With apologies to the competition commissions and fair trade tribunals around the world – of course it isn’t. Never was, probably never will be. The only way that would be possible is if all the competitors in the market had equal power. And we know that’s not the case. The big and powerful will try to use their muscle to manipulate the market and the smaller competitors will be reliant on their ingenuity, uniqueness and flexibility to glean themselves a slice of the cake.

So, once you accept the reality of this, you realise that you need to do everything you can to tilt the playing field your way. To do this you need to be in a position of influence, so your first goal should be to put yourself into such a position with the decision makers and appropriate stakeholders. You might do this by working to have them see you as not just an expert in your products, but an industry expert .
2. Your competitors will play by the rules
Rules? What do you think this is – scrabble? Apart from the trade practices regulations, anything is fair game. You should use this by being pro-active. If your competition isn’t accusing you of cheating; you’re not being inventive enough. You should be constantly looking for ways that you can tilt the playing field in a way that suits you and also benefits the client. This last part is all-important because any suggested change must be presented as an initiative designed to address the client’s need – not yours. While it is fine for your competition to accuse you of not playing fair; if the client thinks you are trying to manipulate the process to suit yourself, you’ve got problems!

3. You have more information about your product than your client
This used to be the case not so long ago. As the salesperson, you were their primary source of information about your product. Often, you were their only source of information about your products. Now, they not only have all the data on the company website, they have access to every blog, forum or discussion board where your product is mentioned. For the first time since modern marketing methods evolved, consumers of the same product have easy access to each other.

Does this make the salesperson redundant? Far from it; but it does mean that their role might change. In the past they were the information source; now, they need to be the information sorter. This doesn’t mean that you won’t provide new information. There will probably always be some information that you can access that the client can’t; but providing that information won’t be your most important role because the client will have so much additional information that they have accessed themselves. Your problem with clients is not their ignorance, it is their pre-conceptions. Information is not knowledge. Ironically, more information does not necessarily make you better informed. It has been shown that beyond a certain point, more information makes decision making harder. It has been described as ‘analysis paralysis’. This is where a skilled salesperson comes in – asking the right questions, helping to prioritise criteria and sorting the information overload so the client can make sense of it all and, most importantly, regain their decision-making confidence.


The salesperson who will thrive in this environment will be more of a facilitator than an information source, more of a questioner than a teller.

The era of the ‘re-invented’ salesperson is upon us. This person will be more a trusted buying adviser than a product pusher – and they will be more important than ever.

You can read mor about this 're-invented'sales technique at http://www.tiltsell.com/

Great Example of Humour in Sales

A friend recently ordered a cd from cdbaby and received this in reply:

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.


A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, November 26, 2010.

We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. In commemoration, we have placed your picture on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh...

We miss you already. We'll be right here at http://cdbaby.com/, patiently awaiting your return.

Congratulations CDBaby...what a great way to bring a smile in an otherwise mundane functional email. They deserve the repeat business.

How the Internet Changed Sales

Up until recently, good salespeople were a protected species. As long as you had a successful track record, you could sail through bad times unscathed; with your suffering being restricted to a reduction in bonuses or a clamp-down on your expense account. At worst, you’d need to switch employers – because even if your boss went broke, you could generally move straight across to their biggest competitor.
Well, times have changed. The protection is gone. Salespeople are suddenly expendable...they’ve been replaced by a website, an on-line shop – even an iPhone app! Some retail staff have become full-time demonstrators for products they will never sell. Buyers visit them for the tactile experience, decide on the model they want, and then go on-line to get the best price. But, this is not the most significant difference. Some products will, inevitably, only be sold on-line. It’s how the internet has changed buyer behaviour for everything else that threatens ‘traditional’ salespeople. One of Australia’s top business magazines (Business Review Weekly) reported in its June 3rd edition that 25% of salespeople will lose their jobs in the next five years.
What’s happened? In the past – before around 2005 - the buying cycle and the sales cycle were in sync with each other. The buyer needed the seller to provide information before they could go to the next step. In 2007, two researchers (Trailer and Dickie) reported in the Harvard Business Review: “Now the buy cycle is well under way before the seller is even aware there is a cycle.”

Last year, I needed to buy a new car. Now, if this were twenty years ago, my first port of call would have been the car showrooms. I would have sat in a few cars, perhaps even gone for a test drive or two and, hopefully, walked away with a nice glossy brochure that I could read from cover to cover over the coming days or weeks (until, in fact, I could convince my spouse to agree to the model I wanted – not just the model I needed!).

This time, of course, my first visit was to a website. I spent weeks making my decision (and getting agreement) and when I had done that, I visited the showroom. The poor salesperson didn’t stand a chance.

• He tried to tell me about the features – I knew them all. I’d studied every word the manufacturer had ever published about this car.

• He tried to tell me about the reviews – read them all.

• He tried to tell me about the reliability. I’d visited every forum of users of this make and this model and had the opportunity to communicate with them from around the world.

• He tried to tell me about the special deal. I showed him an even more special one I’d found on the internet.

He had no real opportunity to influence my decision. The buying cycle had been three weeks for me – and I’d only involved him in the last 20 minutes of it.

The trouble is, the sales models used by most companies nowadays – excellent as they are in themselves – were designed before 2000 - before customer behaviour changed. Salespeople who try to use the ‘old’ process with a buyer using the ‘new’ process are like the primitive peoples who tried to defend their land with bows and arrows against conquerors with firearms. They don’t stand a chance. In this case, they are reduced to ‘commodity’ salespeople – selling on price alone. And it’s easy to see that these salespeople will soon no longer have a role – or, if they do, they certainly won’t command a premium income.

So, will salespeople become redundant? For those who sell only on price, probably. But the good salespeople will be even more essential...yet their role must change. Here are three examples.

Old

1. The salesperson was the primary source of information

2. For a company, first impressions were created with your premises and publicity

3. For an individual, first impressions were created with your first meeting or telephone conversation

New

1. The customer has as much – or more – information about their specific product than the salesperson. Here is one of the primary roles of the ‘new’ salesperson – as an interpreter, clarifier or facilitator helping them make sense of all the data. More information does not mean better informed. Once we reach ‘information overload’ decision-making actually becomes more difficult. The ‘new’ salesperson has the skills and techniques to assist them to confidently make a buying decision.

2. For a company, the first impression for most is through their website.

3. For an individual, the first impression may well be via their social networking profile (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc). The ‘new’ salesperson uses this resource to create more powerful first impressions and build trust more quickly through common connections.

This is the greatest change in consumer behaviour in two centuries. Unfortunately, those salespeople who fail to adapt may go the way of the dinosaurs. For those who do, exciting times are ahead!

Get Dumped Early - and Sell More

When I was dating, I hated getting dumped. Even when I knew deep down that she was right in wanting to split, I’d fight it and try to save the relationship...because I hated getting dumped.

A lot of sales relationships are like that.

If the client voices obstacles – even significant ones – the tendency is to defer them as long as possible in the hope that as the relationship grows the client’s obstacles will disappear. Most sales processes leave ‘overcoming obstacles’ as the penultimate step – further entrenching the principle of leaving the difficult stuff until as late as possible.

This is wrong. To build a viable client relationship in today’s environment takes so much effort, the attention should be on identifying the obstacles early – so you can make a realistic assessment of your chances of success. You may still decide to take the risk, but at least you’re doing it with your eyes open. Think about how much time you spend on proposals that came to nothing. Imagine if you could take just part of that time and put it towards prospecting?

What you should be doing is introducing topics in the early part of the relationship that unearth any potential obstacles further down the track. This will have one of two outcomes:

1. You don’t get the sale – which you probably wouldn’t have got anyway, it just would have taken a lot longer.

2. You win the sale – and it happens in a faster time because you have advanced the process.

Either way, you impress the client with your integrity and initiative.

So, get dumped early. It’s good for the relationship!