By Mike Schultz and John Doerr
An Important Decision, and You Are the Buyer
Let's say you are about to buy something important, like personal financial services for your family's investments. You interview two potential financial advisors in separate conversations to evaluate their services.
Financial advisor number one has a long conversation with you where it never feels like he is trying to sell you anything. He asks you questions, but also talks. The rapport is good. He seems to know what he is talking about without hammering you over the head with finance detail. Even though you know he is selling his financial services, it does not feel like he is giving you the hard-sell.
Financial advisor number two obviously views your conversation as an opportunity to ‘sell' you on his services. He asks you questions, going through his well-planned but standard ‘selling financial services' questionnaire. Then he pitches why he is better than the competition and talks about his accomplishments. He tries to sound smart about financial planning. Finally, he tries to ‘close' you and pushes you to open an account now. You ask for time to think it over.
They both come back to you one week later with the same advice for how to move forward with your financial future, but financial advisor number one is slightly more expensive.
Which one are you likely to choose: the one with the strong selling techniques pushing you to close, or the more expensive one who made you feel like you could work with him for the next 20 years as your trusted advisor?
On Being Too Salesy
There is nothing wrong with selling or using the right selling techniques. Quite the contrary, the act of selling, when done well, adds a significant amount of value; a well planned sales conversation can help even sophisticated buyers make smarter decisions.
However, sometimes the questions are asked such that you can almost hear the seller thinking:
First, I'm going to ask a few questions about the person's family…. I'll make small talk about fishing and his kids. OK, that was a good warm up…now I'll say ‘let's get down to financial business' so I can be viewed as a focused financial advisor.
Now is the time I ask questions about his situation and goals…While I'm doing this, I need to seem very professional and financial so I'll put my glasses on and take out my calculator…question six: retirement cash flow…question seven: tax planning…question eight: estate planning…
OK, now that the questions are done, I'm going to get him to explicitly state the value of the solution I propose, close the deal, get the order, and thank him for his ‘valuable time today'…
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once remarked, “I do not have a definition for pornography, but I know it when I see it.” We, too, do not have a definition for ‘too salesy', but we know it when we see it. So do most buyers. And when they do see it, their reactions are consistent:
- Buyers' defenses go up. First impressions are important. If the buyers' first impression is, ‘He's a sales guy,' it is tough to shake it.
- Trust is difficult to establish.
Being too salesly makes buyers question the seller's motives, making trust difficult to establish.
- Buyers feel patronized.
Sellers may be trying to be deferential by saying transparent things like, “thank you for your valuable time.” Most times buyers feel the seller is contrived.
While being too salesly is ill-advised for any sales rep, it is particularly bad for sellers of consulting, professional, financial, and technology services. Buyers of products can often say, “I don't like the sales rep, but I can tune her out and simply evaluate her product against the competition.”
Buyers of services are often evaluating the sellers themselves. Why? The seller is often the service provider. The relationship does not end when the sale itself is completed¯it begins. Thus, the foundation of trust set up between the buyer and seller in the sales process is of paramount importance.
Non-salesy Selling Techniques
So how do you discover client goals and offer the right solutions without sounding contrived?
- Take pride in selling. Sometimes salespeople say too quickly, “Now I don't want this in any way to be viewed as a sales discussion…I'm here to help you.” There is nothing wrong with selling. Avoid being a sales apologist.
- Choose not to be contrived. While it may seem simplistic, one of the most important ways to avoid sounding contrived is to choose to avoid it. By saying to yourself before a sales conversation, “I'm not going to deliver phrases like ‘thank you for your valuable time' and ‘what keeps you up at night',” you will erase a certain percent of contrived language from your speech patterns.
- Relax. Sellers that seem rushed create buyers that feel rushed. Rushed buyers feel pressured; this fosters distrust. If a seller seems too eager, the buyer thinks, “Why does he seem to need this sale so badly…what's wrong with this picture?”
- Be a person, not a robot. The underlying strength of most sales methodologies is their focus on helping you to understand buyer needs. This is good. However, engaging these sales methodologies like they are a script creates a robotic, stilted sales discussion. The more your sales discussions resemble normal conversations, the more real rapport you will be able to build.
- Meet your commitments. As you improve at conducting sales conversations that flow like conversations, you will generate a foundation of trust. Be worthy of that foundation; keep promises and deliver on what you say you will do.
- Get feedback. Most every seller can improve their sales conversations. The most consistent and fastest way of developing your skills is to have someone whose opinions you respect observe you in action. It is worth the time and resources to get good feedback. Actively seek it out.
Selling is valuable and rewarding; salesly selling is contrived and ineffective. As you are selling, tune into how salesly you sound. You may find that a few stylistic changes can dramatically change your sales success rate. |