Archive for November, 2015
Seven Psychological Triggers That Will Put Your Sales Goal in Reach
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on November 25, 2015
Few things are more frustrating for a salesperson than an invisible wall. You can have a great track record, a way with words, a dapper appearance, and a charming personality — but that will only take you so far. The best, most well-rounded salespeople have mastered a non-physical, or relational, side of the game. There’s a deep psychology to sales, and your success depends on your ability to understand the “how” and “why” of your clients’ decisions.
Activating the following psychological sales triggers will send you down the right path and enable you to quickly build deeper, more effective rapport with your current and prospective clients:
- Personalize your story. You want your story to help clients connect their desire for a product to an emotion. Someone who feels something about a product is much more likely to purchase than someone who merely knows about it. A good way to accomplish this is to add personal anecdotes to your pitch. For example, if your client works in the medical field, start your story with the phrase, “In commonly working with medical practitioners, this is what I’ve found.” In doing this, you’re creating a personal connection with your client and opening the door for an emotional response.
- Tailor your reason. Every client has different reasons for wanting something. Displaying one overarching utility of your product is an insufficient tactic. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to effective sales. To properly apply this trigger, you need to know the specific hobbies and interests of your clients. Are you speaking to someone who prioritizes family values or someone who loves work more than anything else? Leverage that knowledge to tailor the appeal of your product and kick-start each client’s motivation.
- Spark curiosity. Once the client hears your story and begins to feel the need to acquire your product, you must give those positive feelings a viable destination. In other words, you need to ignite a spark of curiosity that causes him to visualize how he’ll apply your product to his life. When cultivating this curiosity, it’s important to share the right amount of information. If you under-share, your client will leave the meeting with too vague of an idea and possibly lose interest. But don’t over-share because you’ll run out of things to talk about at the closing meeting. Finding the correct balance will lead your clients to leave the initial meeting feeling understood and eagerly awaiting the next one.
- Be specific. Everyone who works in sales knows that most clients naturally distrust salespeople. That’s why it’s so important to provide clients with something concrete rather than a general sales pitch. By giving specifics, you step outside the salesperson box and become an educator — a much more trusted figure. Again, this is why it’s vital to study your clients as individuals. Handing everyone an 800-page manual that covers all your products just won’t cut it. Add specific twists and turns to your pitch that cater directly to each client’s personality and interests.
- Express expertise. Another way to build trust and depart from sales stereotypes is to present yourself as an expert in your field or as someone who has direct access to authority figures. My former business partner Scott was a renowned expert in wealth management, while my expertise was in life insurance. When we were in business together, I made sure to connect my clients from the financial industry with Scott to use his knowledge as a selling point. I told my clients that I was excited to introduce them to Scott, and I was sure to tell them what qualified him as an expert in their field. By leveraging Scott’s authority, I was not only asserting myself as someone who could meet their needs, but I was also sparking curiosity by creating excitement around a meeting with him.
- Emphasize scarcity. Scarcity is an age-old sales tactic. Consumers are commonly told to hurry up and buy something before it’s too late. But scarcity doesn’t always have to refer to quantity; it can also mean a limited-time offer or a temporary bonus. In suggesting that your product is scarce, you’re urging clients to move your offering to the top of their priority list and give it their full attention. Scarcity is a powerful tool, but be careful how you use it. Yes, you want your client to feel a sense of urgency about buying your product, but don’t use this trigger to manipulate them into making decisions that aren’t right for them. When you use scarcity to mislead and fluster clients, you risk losing the ability to sell to them in the future.
- Consider legacy. Getting your clients to think about legacy means helping them look at the big picture while maintaining attention on the current sale at hand. How you focus on legacy depends on your audience. If your client is a business, communicate how your product will help it move toward its long-term goals and better express its core values. If your client is an individual, speak directly to his personal goals.
Don’t just be a general salesperson who delivers general sales pitches. Be a human who seeks personal connections while selling a product. These tailored connections are the key to the psychological side of sales. Becoming a reliable, relatable salesperson will help you knock down that pesky invisible wall.
This article was originally posted to the Sales & Marketing Management Blog by Ben Newman on September 25, 2015.
Developing an Effective Sales Force in Today’s Complex Environment
Posted by Rick Pranitis in Sales Process Evaluation on November 16, 2015
“In most business models, the sales department is fixated on selling. The problem with this approach is that people no longer want to be sold.”
— The Modern Face of Sales by Humpus Jakobbson
All aspects of business have changed, and as Jakobsson points out, this includes sales. Traditional approaches to selling and training your sales force are outdated. So how do you address the challenge of achieving a successful sales interaction with today’s customers, and how do you equip your sales force to consistently perform to produce the sales outcomes you need?
Some organizations seek simple answers to a complex problem. If sales are down, then more sales training must be the answer. Teach the team more about the product. Or get them to memorize more features and benefits. Or focus the training on how to better use the sales management process to improve the customer experience. Or modernize the sales force automation tool. While aspects of these solutions could be helpful, they are just shots in the dark if you don’t first conduct research to understand what is important for your particular sales force.
Complex problems demand a rigorous approach to determine what matters. Selling in today’s highly competitive market filled with technically savvy buyers and hungry competitors certainly qualifies as a complex problem. For many organizations, sales is the final frontier calling for a robust approach to develop in-depth understanding. For instance,
- Research is conducted to understand what features and functions are important to the target segment.
- Research is conducted to understand what matters to the user.
- Research is conducted to find the right price point.
Typically, however, no research is conducted to understand what is important for individual sales professionals in their roles.
Focusing on the right things, the things that matter, is the fuel that energizes successful sales force improvement efforts. How do you determine what matters most, specifically to your sales team, to create success in your complex selling environment?
The answer, similar to strategies used in marketing and product development, is straightforward and can be summarized in a four-step diagnostic.
Step 1: Identify who’s already getting it right (or starting to). Referring to the sales force with gross generalizations such as, “Our sales force is great,” or “Our sales force is not very good,” is common. These generalizations ignore the fact that the performance of the sales force follows a normal distribution curve. This curve has subpar performers, mostly average performers, and a small handful of top performers. Regardless of your sales situation, the top performers have either already solved or are in the process of solving the mystery that has ensnarled your sales circumstances. Identifying these top performers, though not always as straightforward as you may expect, is the first step in the process of analyzing sales performance. Performers in your sales organization today are creating the customer conversations, experiences and ultimately the end results your organization is seeking. These people are typically the most-respected members of your sales team.
Step 2: Gather data from top performers. Your company’s product, your customer experience initiatives, your incentive programs, your competitor analysis and your customer support all must be integrated within each individual on your sales team. And it is a truly human integration, so understanding your top performance is a people-centric endeavor. In the language of performance improvement specialists, those top performers who have successfully achieved this integration are “unconsciously competent.” In other words, they execute patterns of success without consciously thinking about what they are doing or need to do next. For them, being consistently successful in their roles is a bit like driving a car. They know when to brake, when to accelerate, and how to instantly spot and take action to avoid hazards. Simply surveying them or conducting how-do-you interviews will likely not result in sufficient data to understand what sets them apart. However, collecting data on top performance behavior is not illusive; it can be gathered through observation and diagnostic interviewing techniques, typically conducted by performance improvement specialists. Applied across an appropriate sample set of top performers, these techniques yield an impressive collection of raw data.
Step 3: Analyze the data to develop a model of top performance. Invariably top performers think about their roles differently. Their focus is based on the mental model they have created through trial and error as they have pursued success. By synthesizing the data, a mental model of how top performers view the sales role can be developed. This model is defined through a set of five to seven outcomes that in aggregate are consistently produced by top performers. These outcomes tend to be leading indicators of success rather than lagging indicators. This forward-looking view is the chief reason it is key to identify and codify the desired outcomes.
Step 4: Take action to equip the entire sales team to behave like top performers. Taking action to equip average performers to produce the same outcomes as top performers does not necessarily equate to training. Though effective approaches to equipping the average performers do not ignore knowledge and skill development, these attributes are not the sole focus. The focus should be on equipping the individual sales professionals and the organization to produce top-performer outcomes throughout the sales organization. In our experience, focusing on the outcomes creates alignment throughout the organization that in turn drives new and significant behaviors in both sales leadership and sales professionals. At the core of this behavior change is a set of new and meaningful conversations: conversations between supervisor and sales professional, conversations amongst leadership, and conversations with customers. These new, meaningful conversations have a compounding effect in driving success across the organization.
Following these four steps provides tremendous clarity and focus for the sales team in today’s complex environment, which in turn produces huge dividends for the organization.
This article was originally posted to the Sales & Marketing Management Blog by Greg Long and Butler Newman on September 21, 2015.
Want to Drive Better Sales? Manage People, Not Things
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on November 11, 2015
It doesn’t matter whether you are in the C-suite or just promoted to your first management position. If you think you can lead through policies, bullet points and messaging, you are not going to inspire the best in your people.
To create a culture that fosters confidence, collaboration and commitment, you need people that feel trusted, respected and empowered. Give them clear direction and let them use their skill, talent and creativity to drive wins. Not only will they exceed their goals – they will also deliver new levels of customer service and teamwork.
Here’s how to do it.
Involve everyone in the sales effort
Today’s business moves faster than ever, with more information and communication coming at you every day. To keep people focused on what matters – and to keep them from getting distracted by garbage work that never ladders up to anything – you have to keep things simple. It doesn’t get any simpler than this: Every single person in your company is in sales. Not just your sales department. Lawyers, human resources, engineers, communications professionals, anybody that you employ. They all should be able to answer one question: What did you do, today, to help us win more business?
Everyone in your company is making an impression – internally and externally – and influencing the attitudes and opinions that impact your business. Whether they interact with strategic partners, employees, end users or suppliers, they all shape the image of your business and people’s willingness to do business with you. The more people know they are a part of sales, the more sales – and the customer experience – will be a part of everything they do.
Open the channels of communication completely
The most unhealthy thing you can do is pit people against each other. All that does is create suspicion, paranoia and resentment. The more time sales reps spend worrying about internal competition, the less time they think about real competitors and helping customers. Encourage teamwork at all levels.
You can’t do it with just messaging, though. Salespeople believe what they are told when they see their leaders living it. Win or lose, pick up the phone and say great job. Build communication, one-on-one, one conversation at a time. Don’t send out group emails, or c.c. somebody’s manager, to make a big production out of it. Let them know it is personal – not political.
Not only does that strengthen connection, it also builds trust and transparency. Up and down your chain of command, everybody should be accessible. Anybody should feel free and welcome to email the CEO or a VP with a question, without you or their manager knowing about it. If your team doesn’t have that level of openness and comfort, it is going to be harder for them to work together on the kind of big wins that demand collaboration.
Let people do their jobs
Why bother attracting, hiring and retaining great people if you’re not going to let them use the experience and insight that made you want to hire them in the first place? Back off! The day you have to oversee somebody’s efforts, get into their business or tell them what to do next is, frankly, the day they have to go.
Everybody needs coaching and direction, but that’s very different than micromanaging. Empower your teams to set their own agendas, take control and communicate openly. Because nobody wants to be told what to do. And if you like telling people what to do all the time, you are not leading people, you are managing things.
Keep the attitudes in check
It’s easy to say that prima donna salespeople are more trouble than they are worth. But, as we all know, that’s not always the case. Every once in a while, an arrogant, me-first, high-maintenance sales rep can provide an in to an important account. In that instance, it may be worthwhile in the long run to put up with them for a short period of time. But you have to recognize that as a short-term strategy.
The bigger the deal, the more members of your team it will require to close. A selfish, difficult salesperson will eventually run off some of your best people and clients, costing a lot more than they bring in. Not only do people hate having to work with someone like that, tolerating that kind of behavior will often make others question your leadership and judgment. Your most valuable employees will be the first to leave.
It’s not just about the product
If your organization is going out and trying to sell a product, you are setting yourself up for failure. Of course, the product quality, performance and specs matter. But, more than ever, you have to focus on business outcomes and customer experience. Because of the amount of data and information available online, people now have more than 70 percent of their decision made before you speak with them – up from about 25 percent a decade ago. The question is, can they translate that information into customer benefits?
That is what real salespeople do: They lead customers from the product information to the business outcomes in a way that is authentic, honest and focused on solutions. And that is why they are so valuable and important, both to your organization and to your customers. Make no mistake, that last 30 percent of the decision is made now. And it is your rep that helps the customer make it. The human factor is more important than ever before. So lead accordingly.
This article was originally posted to the Sales & Marketing Management Blog by Mark Weber on September 16, 2015.
The Art of Listening: Establishing Trust Without Saying a Thing
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on November 2, 2015
It’s Buyer Psychology…
Ask a client what they want, and they’ll tell you “expertise; credentials; someone who’ll meet my needs.” Ask them what their needs are, and they’ll tell you. But ask really successful salespeople (or honest clients with experience in buying), and they’ll tell you how it really works. Clients only ask for credentials and expertise because they’re not really sure what else to do. In truth, they’d rather get in range with expertise, and then decide based on their trust in the seller. Clients will tell you their needs because they think they’re supposed to, and because they’re afraid if they don’t, you’ll take advantage of them. But if you can engage them in honest discussion, they’ll admit their uncertainties and discuss, engage in, and evolve their views of what their needs are.
It all depends on why you’re listening.
If you’re listening to hear an answer to a predetermined question, then you will hear the “canned” definitions of needs that clients have prepared for you. You’ll hear their request for credentials and expertise at face value, and not hear the undertone in the question, or in the bored way they listen to your answer. Because what clients really want to talk about is what everyone wants to talk about: Themselves. When someone says, “Tell me about yourself,” they’re just being polite – whether it’s on a date, at a social event, or in a sales call. The right answer is not to tell them about your vast experience with other clients – it is to get them talking about themselves. And to listen as they do so.
The Quality Of Listening
The usual form of listening is conditioned by sales models looking for answers and by flawed views of buyer psychology focused on surface dialogue. What is required is a different quality of listening. The main reason for listening to prospects is to allow the prospect to be heard. Really heard. As in, actually being paid attention to by another human being.
This kind of listening is listening for the sake of listening. Listening to understand, period. No strings attached. No links back to your product. No refined problem statements. Because that’s what people in relationships, at their best, really do. They listen because they want to know what the other person thinks about whatever the other person is interested in talking about. This kind of listening validates other people. It connects us to them. It provides meaning. And, among other things, it sets the stage for sellers and buyers to interact – if that is the right thing to happen next.
Authors Bill Brooks and Tom Travesano, in You’re Working Too Hard To Make The Sale, note that people greatly prefer to buy what they need from those who understand what it is that they want. Read that over again, carefully. People prefer to buy what they need (stuff they’re going to buy anyway), from those who understand them on the basis of what they want (things in life they’d love to have – wishes, hopes, desires). You don’t even have to give them what they want; it’s enough to understand them.
To bring it full circle back to listening: Relationships are the context for successful selling. Relationships are based on trust; they predispose us to engage in qualitatively different kinds of sales conversations. And listening – unrestricted, unbounded, listening for its own sake – is the way we develop such relationships. And therein lies the paradox. The most powerful way to sell depends on unlinking listening from selling – and instead, just listening. Listening not as a step in a sales process, and not as a search for answers to questions. Listening not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself. The point of listening is not what you hear, but the act of listening itself.
Making It Work
Here are 5 tips to listening this way. Number five is the most powerful.
- Ditch the distractions. You cannot multitask undiscovered. Being multitasked feels insulting. Close the door. Face away from the window. Blank the computer screen. Turn the iPhone over. Now, pay attention.
- Use your whole body. Lean toward the speaker – even on the phone. Use facial expressions. Use hands and arms, shake your head, and use “non-verbal” verbalisms. This improves your listening – and indicates you are listening.
- Keep it about them – not you. Use open-ended, not closed, questions. Let them tell their own story – don’t use them as foils for your hypotheses.
- Acknowledge frequently. Paraphrase their data, empathize with their emotions. Make sure you are hearing both correctly; make sure they know you are.
- Think out loud. The biggest obstacle to listening is your own thinking. Be courageous – postpone your thinking until they’re done talking. Be willing to think out loud – with the client. Doing so role-models collaboration and transparency, and that reinforces trust. I hear you. I value you. I respond to you, with no hidden agenda. I trust you. You can trust me.
That’s the message of listening.
This article was originally posted to the Trusted Advisor Blog by Charles H. Green on September 28, 2015.
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