Sales Laundry

Posts Tagged ‘listening’

Early into my sales career I found myself working in a regional electronics and appliance store trying to figure out how to sell the stuff I was surrounded by but had ignored my whole life growing up, appliances.

The #1 reason I wanted to know how to sell appliances was not for the noble purpose of being a knowledgeable source of information for customers; it was for a far more selfish reason, I wanted to beat Davis.

Even on my first day as a trusty new representative, I could see Davis was not a man to be trusted. He had shifty eyes, a smirk like he knew something you didn’t, and a good decade of experience on the rest of us. Picture Snidely Whiplash without the top hat.

Davis was the number one sales rep my first month at the store. He was also number one each and every month he had ever worked there. He was a selling machine and was being paid stupid money compared to the rest of the sales team.

How could a guy that looked about as trustworthy as a snake in a cage full of furry mice continually outsell every other guy on the floor? Why didn’t the customers see right through that stupid grin?

Trying to figure it out, I asked each and every other rep what they thought his secret was before my first two months was at an end.

“He just lies and tells them stuff to get the sale.”

“He has been here so long he has repeat customers that wait for him.”

“He steals sales on your day off.”

“The owner throws extra special customers his way.”

“Customers just don’t understand what a shyster he is.”

“He has good product knowledge.”

And finally…

“He is just good.”

It seemed easy to believe the repeat customer part, or that he had built up a client base that would come back to see him, but that did not make sense if he was lying to every customer he sold to.

The only thing I could see as a tangible difference was his product knowledge, so I set about learning about every item in the store. Anytime a manufacturer’s rep would come in the store I would quiz him about every feature and benefit to every box in the building that we carried.

I studied owner’s manuals (this was long before the Internet) and product sales literature. I watched the TV commercials to see how they were pitching the products. I even went to other appliance stores to watch reps, ask questions, and in general try to be an information sponge.

Finally, after six months of careful painstaking study I knew the story and feature set behind every product in the building and I thought for certain the very next month would spell the end of Davis’ streak of consecutive months at being number one.

I beamed with pride the first day of the month because I crushed Davis’ totals. I sold $2000 worth of merchandise, Davis sold $359 worth. Of course, it was a hollow victory, as that had been Davis’ day off and his one sale was a customer coming back with his card to buy a TV.

Day two, though, I was ready. I had a two pronged attack planned. I had massive product knowledge and I was fast, so I could out run Davis to the customers. I was certain with knowledge and speed combined, Davis would be doomed.

Davis crushed me.

Day 3. Davis crushed me.

Day 4. I was off. Davis crushed me.

Day 5. I was working. Davis crushed me.

With few moments of triumph, which I had already accomplished a time or two before I set my new strategy in play, that is how the entire month played out.

Finally, I decided Davis must have access to product knowledge through his experience I just did not know, so I decided to ask him how to sell Maytag washing machines, because Davis sold them better than anybody and they were expensive compared to the other brands for the most part.

What Davis said that day changed my perception of sales every subsequent day for the rest of my sales life.

He said “When a customer likes the Maytag’s, I sell them a Maytag. When a customer likes the Kitchenaid, I sell them a Kitchenaid.”

Don’t worry; it took me a bit of thinking to unlock the brilliance of that statement as well, so I followed up his statement with a very succinct question.

“Huh?” David laughed at me, looking at me like I was a little boy playing a game for the grownups.

“When the customer likes the Maytag, I tell them about how the small agitator in the Maytag washer is easy on their cloths, because friction with the agitator makes the cloths wear out more quickly. Maytag moves the water through the cloths, not the clothes through the water. Plus they are easy to repair yourself with front access and pieces that are user serviceable.” He said. “When a customer likes the Kitchenaids, I explain how the large agitator in the washer does a fantastic job of churning the cloths and scrubbing them clean as Kitchenaids move the cloths through the water and there are no belts that need replacing like there are on the Maytag’s. Get it?”

“Yes.” I said. I lied. It took even more thinking that night to figure out what he just said then it hit me like, like, like a truckload of Maytag washing machines.

I realized I had done all the research; from Consumer Reports to vendor reps and manuals, etc. and I had decided, based on my expert opinion, which products were the best and those were the ones I tried to sell everyone. If they did not see the brilliance of my logic, I would continue to whack them over the head with facts demonstrating why I was smarter than them and why they should pick the product I was recommending.

As a result I only sold customers I could shoehorn into what I thought was best, and I was taking way too long with the ones that were not listening, meaning Davis was selling more and getting to more customers.

Davis would steal a sale or two on your day off if you would let him, but he never tried to swim upstream with a customer unnecessarily to get them to buy what he thought was best. To his credit, the one the customer bought was the best one because that was the one that got him paid, not the guy at the appliance store across the street.

If you are selling multiple brands of essentially the same basic product, try to understand what each individual brand of that product type is trying to hang their hat on, so to speak.

There will be products selling on no other value than being the lowest price in the category, there will be products that try to offer a unique feature or service that they will try to differentiate themselves with and there will be the top of the line, feature rich models.

Which one should you sell? All of them. Ask your qualifying questions and listen to the answers. Let their needs and wants drive what you sell, not some preconceived notion of what you think is best.

Listen then educate, never dictate or pontificate.

I love cheesy sales one liners.

Image courtesy of newsday.com

What is Dead Air, as it relates to sales, anyway?

dead air – noun. Silence in the room when no one is talking or the silence between the time a question is asked and the answer given.

Do not be afraid of dead air.  Do not be afraid to ask your client a question and let silence fill the room while you wait for the answer.  Well placed silence can be a sales tool just as strong as any other in your bag.

Trust me when I say it is not necessary to fill up all of the gaps in a conversation with more words for the sake of saying more words to avoid awkward silence. 

 There do not have to be words in the air at all times.  In fact your words, as a dutiful Business Development Executive, should be far fewer on average than your prospects.  80%/20% is what the experts say.  Remember, you want to hear what Mr. or Ms. Prospect has to say because they have the problem you are trying to get paid to solve!

 There are times you are going to need your friend “dead air,” so you might as well get comfortable with him right now.

 For example, when the time is right, and you ask for the order from your prospect, let the dead air out there hang to add emphasis to your question.

Ask the question…

 “Mr. Jones, if I can put together a pilot project that meets the criteria we have defined here, will you sign off on the proposal?” 

Then do the most important part… be quiet and wait for an answer.

 It will either be “Yes,” “No,” a valid reason, an excuse, or he will create a diversion and run screaming from the room like his hair is on fire.  That is my experience, anyway.

 When you have pushed a man to a decision or woman for that matter, give him a chance to answer.  This is true of all of the defining questions you will ask throughout your sales career.  I will go as far as to say that your very success in sales hinges on your being able to identify and ask the right questions and sit in silence while you listen attentively for an answer.

 What do you think? (I am not saying a word until you answer.)

“I want to be a partner for my client not just a vendor.” – Joe Salesguy

I say “Prove it.”

“I am in it to help my customers business be successful.” – Joe Salesguy

“Yeah, right.”

“I do not have to understand my customers business in order to sell my product.” – Joe Salesguy

“Your right, but you might have to if you actually want him to buy from you.”

You cannot be a partner with your customer if you can’t understand life from your clients’ shoes because being a partner implies you bring a desired expertise to the table that is not only valued but preferred to other resources available to your customer.

If you do not understand your clients business, you are no different than every other Account Manager or Consultant that knocks on his door. You are indistinguishable. You look the same and smell the same as every other guy out there pitching similar gear.

Failing to understand your potential clients business makes you lazy, stupid, or ignorant. I can fix ignorant, the rest of you are on your own.

With the wealth of information at your WWW fingertips you should have a basic understanding of your clients business before making the call. With a little bit of reading you can even get up to speed pretty quickly on your clients industry and any news about his company in the last year.

If you want to be perceived as being smart, ask smart questions. Take some time to write down some questions ahead of time that will not only demonstrate you are not an idiot but will actually begin to give you a better understanding of the type of environment you client faces.

If you ask “So, what do you do here” you should be show the door with a size 10 footprint on your backside.

Want to know why the best reps in your office can actually get their clients on the phone when they call them? It’s because the client places some value in what that representative has to say.

Or, of course, there is always the possibility that the client could have just accidentally answered the wrong line.

Be helpful, be entertaining, add value if you want your client to consider you valuable.

Right now, think about what you typically say to a prospect in a first meeting. Gut check time. Would you really want to sit there listening to that for an hour?

If not, change what you say. Don’t be boring. Bring value or just don’t go.

The client gets absolutely no value out of the initial questions you ask on an account call.  He only tolerates the questions because he assumes there will be some value coming from your yapping at some point to make it all worth it.

Don’t disappoint.

If you have a story where you have legitimately brought the value, I want to hear it. If you have a story where you got schooled, but learned a good lesson, I want to hear that, too.