We seemed embarrassed to admit it, or we are trained not to say this, but selling isn’t selling really about Self Interest?

Despite all the things we say about being customer focused, what we really want is for the customer to buy what we are selling.  We want to win, we want to beat the competition, we want to achieve our goals, beat our quotas and earn our commissions.  We want to be successful. 

It’s really all about Self Interest…..but what’s wrong with that?

Isn’t business, and life, really about Self Interest?  We choose our relationships based on how they make us feel.  We work in companies based on what we get out of it, not only pay, but they do things we are interested in, they represent what we like.

Our customers are the same way.  They work in their own Self Interests.  They want to achieve their goals, they want to get a promotion, they want want to be successful.

It is human nature to be Self Interested.

Where we get confused, when things start getting complicated or going wrong is when we work with people where our Self Interests Aren’t Aligned.

We are unhappy in our jobs when the expectations of management and the strategies of the company are not aligned with our Self Interests.

Self Interest in sales is very challenging.  If, in serving our Self Interest, we are pushing something on the customer that doesn’t serve their Self Interests, the customers resent it.  They feel pressured, they may feel manipulated.  Conflict arises when Self Interests are not aligned.

But what if we aligned our Self Interests with those of the customer?  What if by focusing on the Self Interest of the customer, we could also satisfy our own Self Interest?  When what we are trying to achieve–sell our solution—aligns with what the customer is trying to achieve—solve a problem, we have no conflicts.  We work in tandem with the customer, each of us satisfying our own Self Interests.

We aren’t interested in nice meetings and conversations (unless that’s in our Self Interest).  We aren’t interested in working with customers who cannot help us satisfy our Self Interest.  We aren’t interested in customers who don’t have problems we can solve.  We want to disqualify all opportunities that don’t serve our Self Interest.  There’s nothing wrong with that–afterall customers feel the same way, they don’t want to waste time with people who don’t satisfy their (the customer’s) Self Interest.  We aren’t going to hurt their feelings, we’re just being human.

There’s another thing about Self Interest–it’s about people, what each of us wants, what each of our customers want.  Our companies and those of our customers really represent the aggregated Self Interests, goals, and dreams of all the employees, stakeholders, and shareholders–but there is really no Self Interest in companies.  Sometimes in selling we forget about this.  We focus on the customer’s–the company’s—goals, objectives, and problems.  We forget about the people who are doing the buying.  We don’t understand each of them, their Self Interests.  If we don’t understand their Self Interests (otherwise known as What’s In It For Them), we may have difficulty in aligning our Self Interests.

There’s nothing wrong with Self Interest–as long as our Self Interests are aligned with those with whom we work and with those of our customers.

My last post, The Hip Bone Connected To The Thigh Bone….. , started a discussion about systems, that is how things work, interrelate, and the dependencies they have on each other.  I focused specifically on how we acquire and retain customers, focusing on sales and marketing as separate, but tightly related systems.  Changes we make in components of our  marketing systems impact the overall marketing system and impact the corresponding sales systems — and vice versa.  For example, if we gear up a major new sales prospecting initiative to acquire new customers in a certain market segment, but we don’t have the corresponding marketing programs to support the sales initiative, we will probably not achieve our goals. 

One of the things about tightly interlinked and interdependent systems is that changes made in one subsystem may have an impact on other subsystems–some closely linked–some very distant.  Often the people making those changes are unconscious of the impact of what they are doing on others.  They may be doing the best job possible, but their view is primarily of their own subsystem.  We forget to take into account the “whole.”

Now let’s turn the crank one more time and look at the new world of buying, selling, customer and community interactions.  After all, our marketing and selling systems exist only to serve the customer’s need to buy and their buying system.  There is no purpose for sales and marketing without this. 

Let’s start with customer buying — after all, they need to be at the center of things. From our own points of view, we tend to overlook customer have many interlinking systems and processes they must manage within their own organization to “buy.”  They have to align different functions, people, agenda’s, goals, requirements to make the best decision for their organizations.  It’s very difficult and complex.  However,  I’ll hold on that discussion for a much later date.  For the purposes of this article, let me focus on the systems that interface with the customers buying decisions and how they are connected.

In the “old days, “  It used to be our marketing and selling processes and systems were oriented to creating awareness, interest, demand, need and fulfilling a buying requirement for a customer.  Our marketing and sales systems were oriented around informing and educating prospective customers.  In fact, our customers depended on us, and our competition,  to do this well, so they could evaluate and purchase the right solution.  Sometimes there were outside things — like those pesky anaylsts–that helped to inform the customer about our products and those of the competition.  But we accommodated those in our marketing and selling systems.  Some how this model of buying and selling was very efficient and worked for decades.

However, the world of buying is changing rapdiley and profoundly.  This thing called “social media” one of the things that has turned the world of buying upside down.  Buyers are no longer depending on our sales and marketing–or that of our competition–to be informed and educated about solutions.   Buyers are using communities of users, other informed people, and even those with an axe to grind for their information on trends, issues and solutions.  They are engaging communities of associates around the world, learning about their experiences with those products and solutions.

Customers changing the way they buy, changing their “system” in ways that are “designing” our sales and marketing efforts out of the process—or at least significantly redesigning our roles.  They are moving quite aggressively, relying on what they perceive as better sources of insight through communities on the web.  As you may recall from my last article, not only are the customers changing the way they buy, they are changing their “interface definitions.”  Remember, the value of common interfaces helps ease the challenge of optimizing systems.  If we keep the interface definitions constant, we can re-design the systems on either side of the interface.  Once the interface changes, everything on both sides has to change.

It’s this “interface” change that creates one of the greatest challenges for us.  It mandates we change the way we design our marketing and sales systems.  Yet too often, we continue, somewhat wishfully or wistfully, with the way we always used to do things.  We wonder why our marketing and sales programs are no longer producing the result they used to.

The new “interfaces” are being defined.  Our customers are doing this now by redefining the way they buy.  Sales and marketing needs to claim a place at that table–both responding to the new interfaces the customer is designing and advising the customer on more effective and efficient buying process design. 

We need to redesign our sales and marketing systems to accommodate these new interface and systems.  There are new participants in the system–communities of up to thousands that all have some impact on the way the system works.  Some have strong interactions, some are much weaker.  We need to understand these new participants in the systems and make sure our systems work with them.

I’ll stop here.  Perhaps I’ve been a little long winded in my explanation, but we can no longer be designing how we market and sell by focusing on our own organizations and functions.  The customer has always been a major part of the design, but there are new players we need to include in our thinking.  If we don’t someone else might–making their system much more effective.

After-note, otherwise known as “Confessions of a struggling blogger.”  As I re-read this post, I’m not sure I’ve done what I had set out to do justice.  I think it’s fairly easy to talk about the interrelationships of our internal systems and processes, like marketing and sales.  I’m struggling with finding the right words to explain how we cannot design these in isolation, and that we must engage buyers and the community in that design.  Likewise, customers can’t design their buying processes/systems in isolation, but must also engage sellers and the community in that design.  Is there a better way to express it?  Can you help clarify what I am clearly stumbling to explain?

No, I’ve not decided to convert this blog into a lesson on Anatomy, I actually want to talk about systems.  But I don’t mean systems–technology, I mean systems–the way thing work, how things interrelate, specifically in acquiring and retaining customers.

The way we acquire and retain customers is a complex inter-relationship of different activities and processes.  These processes occur within our organizations, for example through sales and marketing, with our customers–their buying processes, and in the surrounding community–our competition, opinion leaders, and others.  All these “subsystems” are connected together, they depend on each other, respond to each other.  Likewise, these systems don’t work well in isolation or without the other systems.  For example, a selling process is meaningless unless aligned with a customer engaged in a buying process.

The complexity of these systems and their relationships cause us to break them down, focusing on subsystems and components.  We start to specialize in these subsystems, for example, marketing may focus on demand and lead generation.  We in sales focus on our selling processes.  It’s a natural and probably the only way to manage the complexity and begin to design, develop, execute and manage our customer acquisition and retention processes.

Designers and engineers try to manage the complexity of the interrelationships between subsystems by trying to define clean interfaces–defined inputs and outputs.  The theory being as long as we keep the inputs and outputs the same, we can change anything within the subsystem and not have an impact on the overall system performance.  We try to do that as we define our marketing and selling processes — it’s perfectly reasonable and puts some manageability to what we do. 

Designers and engineers design subsystems, trying to keep clean interfaces, optimizing the overall system.  Here’s where some of the challenge comes in.  First, as much as we try, it’s very difficult to keep clean interfaces — even in designing “products.”  For example, when we develop mechanical assemblies, we design within certain tolerances.  As we try to fit those parts together, each subsystem that worked on its own–used the expected inputs and delivered the expected outputs, now the system as a whole doesn’t achieve it’s objective.  In the case of mechanical assemblies, this problem is called “tolerance stack-up.”  Each part meets its tolerance requirements, but when I try to fit them all together, they don’t fit.

We see the same thing in out processes for acquiring and retaining customers.  Marketing may define a perfect lead nurturing and qualification process, it may fit the “specs” perfectly; but when it is “assembled” with the sales lead/qualifiation process, it blows up and doesn’t work.  Something is lost in the interfaces, something is lost in the interrelationship of these processes.

The problem gets more complex — at least with sales and marketing.  Designers and engineers know that all the subsystems must come together and work as a whole.  They understand that missing major subsystems means the thing doesn’t work.  A car without a braking system doesn’t works very effectively as a car.

We seem to forget the need for “clean interfaces” and the view of the “whole,” looking at our customer acquisition and retention processes–sales and marketing.  CSO Insight’s 2010 Sales Performance Optimization Study provides some interesting clues about these issues.  We design our sales prospecting strategies around achieving certain goals and objectives, yet we cut marketing budgets for lead generation.  We base our quotas around certain sales performance levels, but we cut training budgets so we don’t develop the skills of sales people to perform at the expected levels.

Now let me add another level of complexity.  In sales and marketing, the interfaces are never clean.  Moreover, they are constantly changing.  Using my car analogy, it’s kind of like installing a new braking system while driving at top speed on a curvy mountain road–covered with ice.  It’s not a trivial problem to solve.  One of the ways we start managing this is simple, we start talking to each other.  The days of marketing and selling “silo’s” are over.  We have to have to coordinate our programs, processes, goals, investments.  We need to start collaborating.  We need “interlock” what we do with the other functions in our organization.  (As a side note, Andrew Rudin is looking at this same issue from a slightly different perspective, “Fools Gold:  Searching For The Most Important Step Will Ruin Your Sales Process.”  Take the time to read it, it reall compliments some of the points I am making.)

I’ll stop here — but there’s more, so far I’ve been focused on our marketing and selling subsystems.  Now imagine adding the customer buying and community subsystems into the mix.  I’ll talk about these in the next blog post.  I’ll leave you sitting at the edges of your seats for now.

There are a couple of things that I’d like to conclude with:

• We do have to break down these processes, developing high performance subsystems.  There is so much that can be gained by optimizing these subsystems and processes.  All the work that is being done to improve marketing effectiveness and processes is critical to our organizations.  Likewise, all the work that we do in improving sales processes, performance and effectiveness is critical.
• While we are “solving” those problems, we must be cognizant that what we do with these subsystems may not work when you look at the system as a whole.  Ultimately, we have to look at how all the pieces – parts fit together.  Does the “whole” work together to achieve the results we want?  Are we making changes to one subsystem that adversely impact another subsystem? 
• As sales and marketing professionals, we need to be thinking in “systems” terms.  We need to think how subsystems fit into the overall system and how we interlock on programs, processes, goals and objectives.

What do you think?

Stay tuned, the real challenge is still ahead!

I hear the phrase, “Pay For Performance,” all the time.  I think it’s a reasonable concept, that is, the better you perform, the better you get paid.  Naturally, we want to pay our top performers the best, who can argue with that?

Somehow, it seems as though Pay For Performance is getting distorted.  If we want the sales person to do something, other than get orders, we put a bonus on it or add it to the commission plan.  We want the CRM system updated, put a bonus on it.  We want forecast accuracy, let’s pay the sales people for accurate forecasts.  We want the sales person to participate in a task force, let’s put an incentive on it.  Somehow, things seem to be getting confused.  Too often, our solution to motivating sales people to do we need them to do is to put some form of compensation on it–a bonus, a commission element, an incentive.

I get into a conversation about this issue at least once a week.  A sales manager or business executive calls me to ask, “How do I get my sales people to do what I want?  What if I added something to their compensation plan?”  Throw money at the problem, it will motivate the right behavior!

Somehow that seems to be a temporary and, possibly, an expensive fix.

In a comment on this blog, my friend Jim Keenan, reminded me that much of this is all about leadership.  Jim’s right, somehow, the issues, seem to be rooted in leadership.  Leadership–getting people aligned to achieve the organizations goals and objectives, providing them the skills and tools to achieve them, motivating and inspiring them, coaching them–helping them improve their performance.  Leadership is all tough stuff.  It’s demanding, it takes time and patience.  It’s dirty work, a leader actually has to get engaged with their people, they have to set expectations, they have to manage performance–both good and bad.

Getting a sales person to keep the CRM system updated is not just something managers can dictate, we’ve seen the failure of these strategies.  Leaders have to show sales people how the tool helps them–the sales people–become more productive and effective.  They have to help the sales person understand the impact of this information on the rest of the company.  Producing accurate forecasts is important for the company–other functions set their plans and schedules around the forecast, they allocate resources based on the forecast.  Accurate sales forecasts are a cornerstone to overall company performance–leaders need to make certain their people understand this importance of this to the organization.

Leadership requires the leader to clearly identify roles, responsibilities, expectations.  It requires the leader to define expected behaviors, and to model them in their own performance.  It requires the leader to clearly communicate these to the sales person, making sure they understand and own these responsibilities and expectations.  Leadership requires leaders to manage performance.  Thise means they need to invest time in their people, coaching, developing, and helping them achieve the highest levels of performance.

To borrow a term from Jill Konrath, in the “crazy busy world” of sales managers, it’s often tempting to take the easy way out, to substitute pay, an incentive, a bonus to get what we want.   Rather than doing the tough and time consuming work of leaders, we throw money at the problem.

Don’t get me wrong, I think bonuses and incentives are very powerful in motivating certain actions and behaviors.  I think they are best applied over a short period of time for very specific and short term goals.  For example, in a new product introductions, an accelerator or incentive around the sale of that product can give a quick start.  Accelerating penetration of new markets by leveraging a bonus for sales into those markets can be very powerful. 

However, in my experience, bonuses, commissions and incentives are not effective in driving sustained behavioral or performance changes.  Bonuses or commissions to get the sales people to do things that would be considered “conditions of employment,” set the wrong tone for the organization – both the sales organization and the overall organization.

None of these are substitutes for solid leadership!

I’m participating in a discussion with a group of people I deeply respect.  It is about managing sales performance, particularly about getting sales people to do things they don’t like to do.  You know what those are:  Spending time doing reports for management, updating the CRM system, attending one more training class they think they don’t need, getting those expense reports in on time, participating on an internal task force……..   The list goes on.  The argument of sales people is always the same, “You’re keeping me away from the customer, don’t you want me selling?”  “This will keep me making my number.”

In the discussion, a suggestion has been made, “we should base some of their compensation on having them do this [activity].  What if we based X% of their bonus on doing these activities?”

I think this is a fundamental problem.  Sales people are motivated by compensation–aren’t all of us.  However, tying everything to the compensation plan is wrong.  It dilutes the plan–pretty soon the plan gets so confusing with the number of bonus elements, that it no longer becomes a motivator.  What are we saying our people should do?  Where should they focus?  Do we want them to sell?  Do we want them to do other things?  Which is more important?

This is a common problem, I think too often, managers try to leverage the compensation plan to drive the behaviors we want.  It’s kind of like a parent, giving a child a reward for doing what they have been asked.  Over the long term, it drives dysfunctional behaviors  –”You want me to do this, you have to pay me for it.”

We need to remember, there are several dimensions to performance management.  One is the compensation plan.  It should focus on the 2-3 major behavioral and performance expectations you want the sales person to focus on—in the case of sales people, that’s probably something directly related to sales.  We want to keep this clear, simple, unambiguous.

There is another side to performance management, that’s the performance plan or review process.  Too many managers don’t use this–frankly they do a bad job of managing this process and reviewing performance.  Just a point of clarification, many think a performance plan is something you put in place for people who are on notice and must improve their performance or be terminated. 

The performance plan is (or should be) something different.   It should set the basic standards of performance we have for each person in the organization.  It should establish each person’s goals and objectives for the year–not only their quota, but other expectations we have of the person and their expected contribution to the organization.  It provides a framework for the behavioral standards of each person.  The performance plan is where managers need to address expectations of the job that may not, or should not, be covered in the compensation plan.  If we expect CRM systems to be kept up to date, we don’t want to compensate them on doing this, we want to set it as a performance objective in their performance plan.  If we want them to do certain developmental activities, these should be covered in the performance plan.

I think a performance plan is critical for everyone.  It sets overall goals and objectives for each person in the organization, it outlines areas of personal development, it establishes “MBO’s.”   In many organizations, the performance plan and subsequent review is the basis for establishing raises, promotions and other things.  Every organization should have a performance planning process, every person should have a performance plan.  Managers should periodically review performance against the plan as part of their normal coaching process.  The goal is to make sure people achieve their performance objectives, that they are continuing to develop and perform.

It’s important for the sales person and the manager to develop the performance plan jointly–it provides the framework for them to work together, making sure expectations are being met, for aligning priorities and objectives, for growth and development.  It provides a road map for both the sales person and manager to inspect throughout the year.  It provides the basis for a coaching plan for managers.

In managing performance, we need to leverage both the compensation plan and the performance plan.  Without both, managers aren’t leveraging the tools necessary to develop their people and drive the highest levels of performance.

Sales people are great at “reacting.”  The customer puts a hurdle in front of us, we know how to respond.  The competitor does something, we know what to do.  Our management asks us to do something, we immediately (well OK–almost immediately) jump on it.

Most sales people are proud of their nimbleness and speed in reacting, handling any challenge put to them.

I guess I have the problem with the “re” part of reacting.  If we are reacting, it means someone else is acting–demanding our response.  It means someone else is setting the rules, defining the playing field, possibly defining the outcome.  Reacting always diverts us, it sets us down a different path than the one we were originally on.  Reacting slows us down.

Somehow, that makes me uncomfortable, I want to be driving the strategy, I want to be setting the rules.  I’d much rather have competition be forced to react to what I’ve done than to be forced to respond to them.

How do we get out of reacting?  This is where that ugly four letter word–starting with P—comes in.  It’s the word no sales person likes, it just wastes time. 

To stop reacting, we have to develop a Plan, yes that’s it, a Plan.  In fact before we even act, we need to have a plan in place. 

When I start talking to sales people about planning–whether it is an opportunity plan, an account plan, a territory plan, or a sales call plan, there eyes roll back.  I know what they are thinking, “Here’s a guy that doesn’t understand the time pressure I’m under, he doesn’t understand how hard it is to get things done.  He doesn’t know how nimble I am, how I can handle anything that comes up.  He’s just going to slow me down!”

It gets worse, I ask them to write the plan down — they can barely suppress the groans.

Well, I’m sorry, I’m not very sympathetic.  I get it, I get the pressures everyone is under–I see it every day, I have similar pressures.  But if we want to control our destiny–if we want to manage sales opportunities to have the shortest sales cycles and highest probabilities of winning, if we want to make sure we are maximizing our impact in the territory or account, if we want to make best use of our time and the customer’s, we have to have a plan.

Planning is nothing more than a disciplined way of thinking about how you are going to achieve your goal.  It is simply the process of laying out exactly what you need to do to reach the endpoint as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Planning makes our actions purposeful, not random.  It gets us out of react mode — it causes others to have to react to us.  Good planning accommodates shifts in course.  The plan is living, not just something we do at the beginning of a sales opportunity, or once a year when we are asked for a territory or account plan.  We update our plans, based on changes that occur as we have executed them.  I guess if you are nit picking, you might call this a reaction, but in reality, it isn’t.  When we react, we simply respond to the action of a customer, competitor, or someone else.  In adjusting our plans, we take stock of where we are, what has changed, and what we must do to most effectively achieve our goals.  It is always forward looking and goal oriented.  It keeps us focused on being effective and efficient.

Are you acting purporsefully, with a plan; or are you reacting?  You will more likely get to your goals if you have a plan of how to do it and thoughtfully execute that plan.

A  week ago, I posted, “I’ve Succumbed–I’m Talking About Sales 2.0.”  Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in a webinar hosted by Tom Scontras of Glance Networks on this topic.

We had a great conversation!  In case you missed it, you can still listen to it at Glance. If you missed it, take some time to listen sometime this weekend.  It’s only about 45 minutes long.  I’d love to get your comments and feedback.

Your Help!

If you are a regular reader, you know I have no shortage of opinions about sales, business, and leadership.  However, I want to pause and ask for your input and ideas.  I’d really appreciate it if you would take a moment to comment suggesting topics that I should write about.

In the past year, I’ve written extensively about sales process, value propositions, sales management/leadership, metrics, and customer focus.  I have more that I want to add to those topics.  I also plan to write quite a bit more on coaching and developing sales professionals, channels, collaboration and partnering in sales, funnel and pipeline management, sales on-boarding, and sales strategy development.

What would you like me to be writing about?  Thanks for taking the time to give me your ideas.  I so appreciate your comments and support, either on the blog, through your emails, or at the other sites these articles appear.  Thanks for your continues support, encouragement, and ideas!

I few days ago, I started a discussion with “What Are The 3 Characteristics That Set Great Sales People Apart?”  followed by “How Important Are ‘Techniques’ To Sales?”  I hadn’t meant to turn this into a series (or saga), but the discussion has been very interesting.  For me, it has been a bit of a journey of discovery.  I’ve always had an aversion to what I call “techniques”  — those 68 closing techniques, the persuasion technique and so forth. 

At the same time, there are techniques or tools that I have found very helpful, questioning approaches, storytelling as a means of illustrating complex points, using humor to offset my natural clumsiness, and so forth.   Somehow, these techniques have become “a part of me.”  They are natural, I never have to think about them, they seem to flow with what I am trying to achieve in engaging the customer.

Perhaps my aversion to what I view as “the techniques” is that I’ve never been very good at using most of them.  I get too caught up in listening to the customer and having a conversation to remember that I should be “mirroring” them or that I should be using certain neuro linguistic or psychological wording  (Make sure you say their name in every sentence …. or whatever that one is).  Somehow I’m too busy working with the customer defining the next steps and moving forward to remember to ask if they like German Shepherds or Saint Bernards (I think the puppy dog close goes something like that).

I wonder if being yourself counts as a technique?  Somehow, I have found my customers and prospects seem to like having a conversation, they tend to appreciate directness.  I have managed to stop saying “that’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard, “  but I chalk that up to politeness.  I tend to handle that with, “Have you ever considered looking at it differently?”  Maybe that’s a technique.

I think of the experiences I’ve had with people selling me something.  I know they are trying to sell me something, I don’t resent it, after all I participating in the discussion.  But the sales calls I appreciate the most are those great directed and focuses conversations.  No pretense, no techniques (I know most of them well enough that I watch for them), just a discussion focused on what I am trying to achieve and how they can help me.

I sit in meetings in large corporations–I see selling going on in every meeting.  People trying to persuade others about an idea or an approach.  People discussing different things, having honest disagreements or differences but working to resolve them.  People aligned to achieving common goals.

Sometimes I think we would be much more effective as sales professionals if we started simplifying things, if we had the courage to be ourselves, if we focused on natural conversations with our customers.  Be sure, these aren’t random or wandering conversations.  Remember, one of the characteristics that I think distinguishes top sales performers is “goal directed curiosity and a problem solving orientation.”  I don’t have a lot of patience (or the requisite social graces) for random conversations.  I’m interested in having great conversations with people who have problems or goals that I can do something about.  I’m interested in learning what they want to achieve and demonstrating how I can help them achieve their goals better than anyone else.  I tend to be very focused and direct about this and they know it.  Somehow, virtually everyone seems to appreciate it—they like getting to the issues without the typical “dancing” we often do.

Let me crawl further out on the limb I’m on.

Sometimes I think we use ” the techniques” for surrogates for being ourselves and being truly engaged in having a conversations with our customers.  When we aren’t curious about the customer and what they are trying to achieve, when we aren’t trying to solve problems, when we really don’t care about them other than convincing them to buy our products, it’s hard to be ourselvesa and be engaged.  Perhaps this is when we use techniques.  Perhaps this is a sweeping generalization and very inaccurate, but it seems those people (I hesitate to call them sales professionals) who use “the-techniques” in the most manipulative ways are those who are more focused on themselves and selling their product and less focused on me and what I need.

Techniques can be important and useful, but I think they have greatest impact when they allow the sales person to be her/himself and enable them to connect more naturally in real conversatons with the customer.

Am I crazy?

The other day, I wrote a piece, What Are The 3 Characteristics That Set Great Sales People Apart?  It stimulated quite a reaction as people started suggesting their ideas.  I was surprised by the focus of a number of people on the “right techniques.”  These comments started to make me wonder about my own belief system and biases.

I guess I have a very negative reaction to the concept of sales techniques.  When I think of these techniques, I think of sales tricks and manipulation.  I did a little research:

• Persuasion techniques like, “the art of repetition,” “the foot in the door,” “the bait and switch,” “low-ball,”that’s not all,” and the lists of techniques for persuading people can go on.
• Closing techniques like, “the assumptive close,” “the puppy dog close,” “fire sales close,” “thermometer close”, “the ultimatum close.”  I actually found a site listing 68 closing techniques!
• Objection handling like, “the boomerang,” “pushback,” “deflection.”

I could go on with list after list of techniques I found in researching “sales techniques.”  I went to the dictionary to look up the definition:

tech-nique  [tek-neek]  1.  The manner and ability with which an artist, writer, dancer, athlete, or the like employs the technical skills of a particular art or field of endeavor.  2.  The body of specialized procedures and methods used in any specific field, esp. in the area of applied science.  3.  Method of performance ; way of accomplishing.  4.  Technical skill; ability to apply procedures or methods so as to effect a desired result.

After reading the definition, I started to think, much of the “advice” I and others I respect offer are “techniques” — or methods — or processes.  After all, I’ve written a lot about effective questioning, listening, qualification, developing and communicating value.  I present tools (techniques) people can use to make them more effective in connecting with and engaging customers.  Likewise, there are a large number of other consultants and bloggers that offer great approaches that create real value for customers, sales professionals and others.

So why do I have such a negative reaction to “sales techniques?”  I think I my negative reaction to “techniques” is not the techniques themselves (though I saw very little redeeming in the list of 68 closing techniques), but the intent or use of the technique.

So often, underlying the use of technique is an intent to manipulate, trick, or deceive.  Anytime the person(s) on the receiving side of a sales person using “techniques” in these ways, everything sours.  What may have been good suddenly turns distasteful. 

On the other hand, techniques can be important to gaining insight and understanding about the customer.  They can help you engage the customer in a conversation about their problems, dreams and goals.  Techniques can be important in communicating complex ideas.  They can help people understand, they can serve to simplify.  Techniques can be important in helping facilitate the customer’s buying process, in helping present value, in helping manage change.  They provide structure for us to work with customers, improving the way we engage them.

I suppose any tool, tip, process, methodology, and, yes, technique can be abused.  Their use can be manipulative and misleading.  Yet we do need techniques.

I’ll have to mull this over a little while, I’m still uncomfortable.  I’m trying to talk myself into believing that techniques are good.  However, I just can’t help it, whenever I hear the term “sales technique,” I immediately think of scenes from movies like Boiler-room.  I think of sleazy sales people doing the “bait and switch,”  followed by the “boomerang” objection handling technique, capped off by the “puppy dog close.”  They trigger the worst examples of sales I can imagine.

Am I wrong on these sales techniques? Can any of you offer advice that can make me more comfortable?

Last Friday, I had the privilege of being interviewed by an executive on critical issues in buying and selling.  It was a great conversation, but one of his questions stuck in my mind.  He asked me, “What are the 3 characteristics that set great sales people apart from others?”

I responded, “Oh, there are so many……”  He interupted, saying, “Dave, you only get to choose the top 3, no more.”

This caused me to pause, any of us can come up with lists of characteristics of great sales people, sometimes it’s half a dozen characteristics, often a dozen, sometimes the lists go on and on…..  Brian’s question was really challenging, he only allowed me 3 characteristics.  I thought to myself, how can I combine several into one, maybe I can create a giant run-on sentence with all sorts of adjectives describing great sales people.

After a few moments of reflecting, I provided three carefully worded phrases:

1. Goal directed curiosity and a problem solving orientation.
2. A genuine interest in helping people achieve their goals and dreams.
3. An ability to embrace changes and to get the people they work with to embrace and own change.

Let me explain myself.

1.Goal directed curiosity and a problem solving orientation.  Every great sales professional I’ve met is incessantly curious.  They want to learn as much about their products and solutions as they can, they want to master them, so they can present them to their customers.  They are curious about their customers–both their customers’ businesses and their customers as individuals.  they study their businesses, their customers’ customers, their customers’ markets and competition.  Their curiosity is not random, it’s very focused.  The greatest sales people know how they can help their customers.  Their curiosity is purposeful, it’s focused on trying to find problems and opportunities their customers have–that the sales person can do something about.  Great sales people don’t go on random fishing expeditions, they don’t cold call–every call is carefully researched and planned,  they don’t waste their customers’ or their own time.  They don’t fool themselves with wishful thinking, but focus pragmatically–does the customer have a problem I can solve?  Can I present and opportunity that would accelerate the ability of my customer to achieve their goals?   In the end, they are about results–those they help the customer produce and those they produce for their organizations.  The greatest sales people are also curious about their profession.  They are constantly reading, attending workshops and seminars, talking to others they respect.  They know to stay at the top of the profession–to be a top performer, that the bar is constantly being raised.

2.  A genuine interest in helping people achieve their goals and dreams.  Top performers care about their own performance, but they know they only way they achieve their goals is through helping the customer achieve their own–whether it is the overall business goals, their function’s departments goals, or their own personal goals.  Top performers revel in seeing their customer being successful in implementing the solutions they have sold them.  Top sales people never “hit and run,” if things aren’t working, they don’t ignore the customer, they go back in and do everything they can to correct things.  Sometimes they can’t correct things, but the customer knows it isn’t for the lack of trying.  Top sales people care!

3.  An ability to embrace changes and to get the people they work with to embrace and own change.  The greatest sales people in the world know that sales is fundamentally about change.  We ask customers to change suppliers/vendors, to select a different product than they have been using.  We ask people to change their processes, the way they do business–to explore new ways of growing being productive.  We ask customers to embrace a new vision for their organizations, to consider new ways to improve or grow.  The best also realize they are asking their own organizations and the people in their organizations to change–how we hold and value customers, how to create the best experiences, how to retain and grow our customers. new products and solutions we might provide to enhance our relationships and grow our business.   Top sales people realize that people may fear or not understand change.  They realize their role is to help people understand it, to own it, to take it on as their own mission and goal.  The best in sales realized they are change managers and that they must create the same vision and excitement for change, with their customers and within their own companies, that they envision.

There’s a lot more characteristics for good sales performance.  But I think these three set the best sales people in the world apart from everyone else.  Do you agree?  If you had only 3 characteristics to choose, which would you select?