It’s October. Fall and Halloween are upon us. So here’s a scary story for the season. I call it scary because I still see it going on, and it scares the ‘you-know-what’ out of me.
Far away, in the magical land of sales wonderment, there exists the holy grail of selling immortality. A place of “drop the facts on you” efficiency where all you need to generate massive amounts of revenue is you spinning through the scripts that came alongside your amazing product. Scripts so magical objections fall away in front of your mighty verbosity. Scripts so powerful you don’t need to know anything about the prospect or the reason you are there. The scripts are enough.
Enter the land of the “one call close”, a land of magical un-engagement. A place where you get what you want first. An opportunity for you to spend as little time as possible creating as big a deal as possible. And if it all sounds too good to be truth, that’s because it is.
You can’t care less and win more. It’s really that simple.
But that doesn’t stop some from agreeing with the sales rep making the off-hand remark about how “He doesn’t want to deal with the details. He just wants to “turn-and-burn”. He’s applauded as if he is the last bastion of sales efficiency and thought leadership, a true example of effective qualifying and “trusting the process”. But that guy is really a moron. And so are those buying into the selfish insanity of “I’ll care when it benefits me” style of business.
But that hasn’t stopped some from romanticizing ridiculous turn-and-burn sales strategies:
• They imagine that a perfect set of closing lines can replace genuine empathy and a relationship.
• They expect that enough marketing emails can replace personal attention and the discipline to prospect better.
• They want to believe that by backing our customer into a corner with what we believe to be our “consultative selling” that we can force them to act quickly instead of giving them space to feel in control.
• They assume that getting another customer is a better strategy than making sure our existing customers stay satisfied for life.
Fantasy land might create a wonderful sub-plot for Hollywood, but it’s crippling to performance.
Caring is simple. You do. Or you don’t.
And despite how these people might try to justify their selfishness, all around them can be seen the ugliness of their attitude and actions. Someday they will too. But it might be too late to do anything about it then. Maybe it’s time to rethink things now – while you still have a chance to change the world.
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