Tag: closing

Sales Words: The Closer’s Fallacy

If Closing Is Essential To Generating Sales, Why Do I Win Business Without Doing It?

Nothing stirs up emotion, positive and negative, in sales people like the “C” word. Some think it’s a relic of the past. Others contend it’s more important to close customers now than ever.

The Closer’s Fallacy is the mistaken idea that the close itself generates the sale. If you can just ask that perfect question, in the right manner, at the end of a call, the customer has no choice but to say yes. Modern research, such as that cited by David Hoffield in “The Science of Selling”, proves that customers make multiple decisions throughout a sales presentation – not just at the end. They seek out answers to their own questions and make their own decisions.
Merely asking your child to brush his teeth applies a form of pressure. So does asking your customer for her business. As a parent, you have leverage. Do what I say because I’m your parent and I said so.. With customers, no such leverage exists. Therefore, sales people can exert strong influence, but never truly compel their customers to take action.

Sincerely,

Meaning2work

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Eight Ways Salespeople Ask To Be Manipulated

Yes. We in sales are victim to many things out of our control. Unrealistic employers. Unreasonable customers. They can make us feel like toys in a the mouth of golden retriever. At the same time, we fail to see how we set ourselves up to be manipulated.

Here are eight ways sales people unknowingly allow themselves to be manipulated:

1. They’re not honest about what they want.

It’s OK that you took sales your job because it was a stepping stone or you simply needed a paycheck. It’s also OK that you got fooled into thinking your job was more lucrative or rewarding than it actually is. Being thankful for what you DO have is always more rational than lamenting the things you SHOULD have. It’s irrational to expect what you want to be handed to you, without having to ask. If you want your customer to make a commitment, ask for it. If want to be promoted, make it known to your boss. Otherwise, why should anyone help you if they think you’re already satisfied?

2. They’ll do almost anything to make more money.

Bad news! Beyond about $75k a year in household income, more income doesn’t result in more happiness. In his book, “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants“, Malcolm Gladwell demonstrates that you really can have too much of a good thing including money. In fact, after a certain point, more household income makes raising children more, not less, difficult! If true happiness could be bought, rich people would always be happy. Instead, they always want more out of life, just like the rest of us. If you doubt what I say, add up all the salary you’ve made in your entire career. Do you still derive lasting happiness from all the money you’ve made? I didn’t think so.

3. They overpromise to customers.

Would you say anything to get the sale? For sales people, getting answers to customer questions can feel like time-consuming grunt work. For customers, getting those answers from you can make the difference between a product to buy and one to avoid. Yes, some customers will waste your time. It’s up to you to qualify them in advance and only commit to what is realistic. If your customer expects perfection, you probably haven’t educated them properly. Telling them what they want to hear without the backup of truth is a recipe for disaster. If you think answering pre-sale questions is grunt work, wait until you have to deliver on an unrealistic expectation! Not every objection is a deal-killer either. It’s your job to find out.

4. They overpromise to their management.

Yes, bosses do love employees who do what their told and make them feel smart. The problem? Everyone is wrong once in a while. If you don’t respectfully question your manager, you create in-need grief in the future. A prime example of this is forecasting. You know your leadership wants an aggressive number, so you give it to them. Congratulations! You’ve just put unrealistic pressure on yourself that you will, inevitably, transfer to your customers. When this backfires, you may cause reactance* or an overwhelmingly negative customer reaction. Remember, sales reps get fired over lost business, not conservative forecasts. See my previous post, “In Sales, “Playing The Game” means “You Lose” For a discussion on this.

5. They fail to question the company on behalf of customers and vice versa.

In business, telling others only what they want to hear helps no one. The best sales people balance the needs of their employer and their customers. If your company currently loses money on your product, they may need to raise its price. Sometimes your job is to sincerely explain this to customers. Conversely, price increases can make your product truly unaffordable for a customer, despite the value it provides. It’s also your job to explain this to your management.

6. They assume they have no career options.

Is only thing you hate more than your current job is the process of finding a new one? It’s easier to do your job in public and complain in private. However, employers don’t respect job tenure as much as they used to. Adaptability to change is held at a high premium. Overstaying your job is like holding a losing investment. The losses can pile up. You may regain lost income and skills that can result from staying too long. The time you lose can never be replaced.

7. They fail to scrutinize the product or service offering when accepting a sales job.

If you’re new to sales, getting your foot in the door with a mediocre market player is ok. Ultimately, it’s up to YOU to find good products to sell and good companies to work for. No salesperson, including you and I, is good enough to overcome a poorly priced or designed product that isn’t supported. Don’t let your ego take the place of the facts. Your sales career is about more than you and how good you are. Do your homework. Talk to customers. Talk to other sales people. Make an informed decision. Even if you’ve been in the same job for years, it never hurts to objectively re-evaluate your situation.

8. They chase winning harder than a dog chases a stick.

Sales competitions, Table tennis. Whatever the contest, is losing never an option for you? While competitiveness can predict success in simple sales cycles (ie. retail), it restricts your growth in more complex, higher-ticket sales jobs. Why? When competing, we narrow our focus. Complex sales situations require creativity thinking.

Still, if you’re determined to reduce your job to a game of win or lose, don’t forget who makes the rules. It’s not you. It’s not your manager. It’s the customer. See my post, “Think BACk: Freewill Is A Bitch!”, for a more thorough discussion on this. If you push product A, when your customer needs product B, she’ll conclude you put your own needs first. As a result, you may lose the opportunity to sell anything to her company. All because you needed to win.
It may seem, at first, the answer to avoiding manipulation is to turn around and manipulate others first. Not so! Instead, focus on being true to yourself, your company, and your customer. Balancing the needs of all three is never easy, but it’s what a job in sales demands.

Regards,
Meaning2work

To check out Malcolm Gladwell’s book “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants” on Amazon click here.

*I first learned the term “reactance” from David Hoffield in his Book, “The Science Of Selling.” It’s a comprehensive, science-based look at the sales profession. To check it out on Amazon click here.

5 Popular Sales Tactics that are Manipulation in Disguise

The most important timeframe for sales people is NOW. The most important goal? GROWTH. Losing bids and losing customers is secondary. The problem? Think back to your best personal experience with a sales person. It’s doubtful he or she was forceful or deceiving in any way. Don’t your customers deserve the same treatment? You know not to lie to customers – even though it can bring short-term success. It’s time to reconsider any sales tactic in your arsenal that doesn’t directly help customers.

Here are five sales tactics that are manipulation in disguise:

1. Non-verbal Persuasion

Think mirroring, using facial expressions, how we dress, eyc contact, etc. These tactics are scientifically proven to make a good impression on a customer. They subconsciously make us more appealing. Is this such a bad thing? Maybe not, but imagine a salesperson dressing like you, posing like you, and smiling like you. Creepy!

2. Passive-Aggressive Pressuring

This is anything from showing up smiling at the same client every day to casually mentioning a tragedy experienced by a company similar to theirs. Whether or not your customer notices immediately is irrelevant. Although your words and actions are polite, what do your actions communicate? Is the insight you’re presenting really a cause for concern? Fear mongering and fake kindness waste your customer’s time and ruin relationships. Customer’s work on their own schedule, not yours.

3. Lying by Omission

This one should be obvious but sales people do it everyday. It’s the fine print that we omit from our presentations. It’s the discount card telling you your medicine is $15 when it ends up costing $150. It’s not alway our fault. Sometimes, corporate keeps us in the dark. What the customer doesn’t know, WILL, eventually hurt them. Getting the sale is never worth risking your credibility. Tell the whole truth.

4. Relationship Selling

Strong business relationships are paramount. Personal relationships can be very helpful, but only when they’re genuine. Don’t be the sales person who goes to family parties or sporting events with clients he can’t stand. Sooner or later your customer will know your a fake and so will you. Try hanging with your real friends a little more. They probably miss you!

5. Keeping Score (Quid Pro Quo)

This means using favors of any sort as leverage. John David Mann and Bob Burg’s book, “The Go Giver”, sums it up nicely.  Among other sage advice, they implore us stop keeping score. Stop expecting something in return for the extra care and service you give to your customers.  Instead, be generous because it’s the right thing to do.  Aren’t you annoyed by sales people who think they can trade a free gift in exchange for a high-pressure sales presentation? To truly give something “free of charge” is to offer it without ANY strings attached.

The verdict:
Are you a horrible person because you’ve used one of these sales tactics I’ve mentioned? Not at all. What separates manipulation from skilled selling is sincerity. If you are having a good conversation, you probably automatically use non-verbal relating techniques. Put your time into answering objections instead of avoiding them. If your customer turns out to be a nice guy our gal, be their friend. Just be a real friend, not one that asks for something in return.

But these techniques work!  Isn’t it my job to sell?  Yes, manipulation techniques do work, but only until your customer figures them out. Then you’re screwed. Don’t risk losing next year’s customers by manipulating them today.

Regards,

Meaning2work

If you’d like to get out “The Go Giver” book on Amazon click here.

Think BACk: Free Will is a Bitch!

OK. What the heck is BACk? A misspelling? No, it’s an acronym for “Be A Customer”. It’s great to know your product, your competition, and your industry. You may even know quite a bit about your customer and her business, but can you think like her? Can you empathize with what challenges she’s dealing with and anticipate how she may react to you or what you offer? That’s what thinking BACk is all about and when you do so, you begin to realize how silly some of our beliefs and tactics are in the sales profession.
Think BACk to a time when someone forced you to buy something. Come on now! Dig deep! No, that last succulent dessert you just had doesn’t count. The best example I can come up with is insurance. There no mortgages to be found on uninsured homes and driving without car insurance is against the law. Still, in these instances I at least had a choice of what vendor to use. Can you admit that no one forced you to buy the car you drive, the clothes you wear, the house you live in, or virtually anything else?
Technology has informed customers in ways not possible just 20 years ago. At the same time, the ancient-yet-relevant philosophy of Stoicism has made it’s way into to popular business books. These two seemingly unrelated forces are combining to change the way we, as sales people, should look at our jobs.
Can you remember a time when you needed a salesman to help you buy a computer? Heck, I might have sold you one! Retail computer buyers back in the 80’s and 90’s often didn’t know what they wanted, what they needed, or even where to start. They would slowly wander up to the electronics display, in the department store where I worked, and stare at the price tags. At the time, my goal was to entice them into a conversation about what they needed to do with a computer. Inevitably, I could then display my superior knowledge to them. This would often result in a sale because I had information they didn’t have when they walked in the door. They needed the help of someone like me in order to make a decision. Today, computers are bought online or in stores with minimal, if any intervention needed from a sales person.
Daniel Pink, in his insightful book “To Sell Is Human”, cites the availability of information as creating more of a level playing field between sales people and customers. To this day, most retail workers expect to get blown off when they ask the traditional “May I Help You?” The difference from when I was in retail in the 1990’s is that now, the customer often is not lying. They DON’T need our help.
If you think this change doesn’t apply to B-to-B, think again. Do you find yourself being brought in later and later in the decision-making process? If so, it’s because they don’t perceive a need for your “expertise”. No one wants their time wasted by someone telling them what they already know. Don’t take it personally. It’s just a fact of life! Today, I find myself selling the added-value of what I do for my customers just as much as my product itself. Sure, there are times when they think they don’t need our help and they actually do. That’s why we have jobs. Regardless of who we THINK has the leverage in any sales situation, there is (and some would argue always has been) one person in charge of the customer’s decision process – the customer.
Thinking back to your house, car, or any other major purchase you’ve made, who is ultimately responsible for making your payments? You, of course. The bank doesn’t care how friendly, how knowledgeable, or how sly your sales person was. The choice to buy the house was, and continues to be, on you. In the corporate world, I’ve seen executives lose their jobs over bad choices with vendors. Once, when I sold software, I had an exec blow up in anger over a price negotiation. Yes, I did eventually close the sale, but soon thereafter the exec was working for a new company.
Just as access to information is giving customers the ability to make better decisions, we are realizing the power to decide may have always been theirs alone. The Stoic philosophers like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius wrote about the power of choice. All any of us control is our ability to make choices. We choose not only what to do but how to feel. Your customer does the same. At our absolute best, we are merely influencing our customer’s decision. Ryan Holiday has written two excellent books: “The Obstacle is the Way” and “Ego is the Enemy” that very nicely summarize Stoicism into a modern-day context.
Of course, in sales, we take credit for as much good news as possible. The bad news is that when we do this, due to customer free will, we lie to ourselves. The customer made the buying decision – not us. Again, think like a customer, not a sales person. You likely researched the last car you bought by looking at reviews, blue book values, and CarFax reports. In doing so, you essentially sold it to yourself. Ironically, as you pulled out of the parking lot, the sales person probably bragged about how he “closed” you.
When our sales are down, things get a little more complicated. We may cite all the factors out of our control to the boss. All the while, we feel the shame of not seizing control like we were taught in sales training. The good news? Due to customer free will, we are rarely fully responsible for our bad numbers either. Can you improve your craft and therefore your results? Along with all the rest of us, yes! Just don’t expect to ever be able to quantify that improvement ahead of time. Does the perfect sales presentation ever guarantee a sale will be made? Only one person knows the answer. Your customer.
Regards,
Meaning2work