[This is the fourth in a series of posts about prospecting and sales negotiations. The two prior posts gave you some ideas on behavior what to avoid when you're prospecting. This post gives you new ways to think about what you're doing. With these new perspectives you can eliminate some of the habits that irritate most people about stereotypical sales behavior.]
The power of mental imagery is amazing. Many psychologists have observed that you can dramatically change the way you perform an activity simply by changing the way you think about it.
Today I’ll share some unconventional ideas about prospecting that can have that kind of power. The ideas come from two sources I respect highly — Jim Camp and Ari Galper. Jim is a negotiations coach and Ari is a sales coach.
Challenges to Traditional Sales Thinking
Both are contrarians. Some of their ideas go so strongly against the prevailing orthodoxy of salescraft that fundamentalist sales managers would accuse Jim and Ari of heresy.
I can almost see my first sales manager — a loud, hard-drinking, overweight, cigar-chomping former Marine and IBM sales guy – shaking his head with disdain and pity that I would share the lunacy you’re about to read.
Having studied what both Jim and Ari teach, I believe their ideas are similar enough that I can present them in same context without compromising the value of either. With apologies to both for any unintended misrepresentations, here’s my mashup of their key suggestions:
1. Set aside all thought of what you need.
Forget your quotas, deadlines, goals, performance metrics, competition with peers, scoreboards, nagging sales managers, personal finances, and so on.
Thinking about such things can only make you tense. Your tension will be evident in the pitch of your voice and the rate of your speech. Maybe it will even make you pushy.
Tension and pushiness are deadly displays of what Jim Camp calls “neediness.” You never want to communicate neediness in any sales situation. It will cause your prospect either to feel pity for you or to feel predatory toward you.
2. Don’t be tempted to show off what you think you know.
Make no assumptions about what your prospect thinks, needs, feels or wants. In particular, don’t assume your offering will be right for her. Enter the conversation as if your mind were a blank slate.
3. Listen intently.
Let your prospect’s words register deeply. Be completely open to what your prospect says. Never interrupt. Never finish a prospect’s sentence. Don’t be thinking about your next question or your next response while the prospect is talking.
4. Talk only very briefly about yourself, your company and your offerings.
Focus on the prospect and what she wants, thinks and feels. Your prospect’s first impulse is to end your interruption. You can overcome it by engaging her in a topic she finds interesting or useful. The more you say about what you offer, the more likely you are to raise an objection that will end the call.
If you’re asked to explain what you’re selling, tell her in a polite and neutral tone of voice that you’re not trying to sell her anything. You don’t know if you have anything to offer that she might want or need.
Briefly mention the kinds of problems you have helped your customers solve. State the benefits you delivered without describing your offering.
If your prospect shows frustration that you’ve deflected her questions about what you offer, state what you do in no more than one very short sentence. Make your statement very general. Again, emphasize the benefits you can deliver without talking about your products or their features.
Then go back right back to asking your prospect what’s important to her.
5. Don’t try to sell or persuade. Save that for an appointment where you can do a proper job of it.
Focus on simply understanding the reality of your prospect’s situation. Remember, your goal is only to learn about your prospect’s perspective and to understand what she values.
You can’t sell anything until you know these things.
After you know what she values, you can start building a relationship that may lead to a sale.
When you’re prospecting, spend all of your time prospect’s world. Don’t try to bring her into yours.
6. Don’t ask questions that make your prospect feel she has to answer them with a yes.
Many sales trainers recommend that you ask questions that are sure to elicit a yes answer. Their theory is that you’ll build such a momentum of yesses that your prospect will have a harder time saying no when you go for the close.
Do you really believe that? Would it work on you?
I’d think that sales person is manipulative, badly trained, and a little stupid for thinking it would work.
7. If you meet resistance, don’t push.
You will never overcome resistance with behavior your prospect feels is pushy.
When a prospect resists anything you’ve said, note that you sensed the resistance. Ask for clarification of her feelings. Repeat what you understood her to have said. Ask her if you’ve understood her correctly. Acknowledge the validity of her feelings.
If she states a strong objection to something you can’t change, tell her so honestly. Suggest that your offering may not be a good fit. Ask her if she’d like to end the call.
If she says she’s willing to continue talking, change the subject. Ask a thought-provoking question that can help her visualize the benefits of what you offer.
7. Don’t try to close.
Don’t try to close your prospect on a specific commitment or a next action. Closing applies pressure.
Instead ask “What would you like me to do?” Her answer will tell you how much progress you’ve made toward building a relationship.
If she says “I’d like you to leave me alone now,” your call is nearly over.
You might end it by saying “I hope I haven’t disturbed you. Clearly this isn’t a good fit for you now. Circumstances can change — sometimes faster than we might imagine. May I call you again?”
If she says yes, you’ve got an invitation. Your next call to her won’t be quite so cold.
8. Invite your prospect to say no.
Regardless of what you offer, only about three to ten percent of the people you talk with on cold calls will be actively shopping for or thinking about buying a product or service like yours.
At least ninety percent won’t be interested when you call and probably won’t be willing to spend much time talking to you.
Accept that on most prospecting calls you can reasonably expect to do only two things:
- learn more about your prospect’s world and
- begin building a relationship that may benefit you both over time.
A no response is OK. It is not an indication of your failure to persuade. It’s not a rejection of you personally (unless you’ve been pushy or rude). It doesn’t last forever. It just means “Not now.”
It’s always best for you to know exactly where you stand, even if it’s not good news. Otherwise you’ll invest time, expectation, emotion and money in chasing a sale that will only frustrate you and your management.
9. Think of every phone call, meeting or any other sales encounter as a negotiation.
A negotiation is an agreement in which each party has the right to say no.
Starting with your first contact, you always negotiate for the time and attention of your prospect.
The moment you stop offering real value in return for your prospect’s investment of her time, you will lose access to her. Expect to offer value in every communication. The busier your prospect, the more value you have to provide.
10. Think of yourself as the equal of the prospect you’re speaking with.
Don’t be deferential or overly respectful. If she answers the phone “Hello, this is Ann,” call her Ann. Don’t call her Mrs. or Ms. Smith. You want a relationship of mutual respect, not of subservience.
11. Be emotionally neutral.
Don’t try to put a smile in your voice. Don’t try to be friendly, upbeat, chipper or energetic.
Don’t say you’re excited or enthusiastic about the possibility of doing business.
Excess emotion appears needy and immature.
Would you want to spend money with a sales person you think is needy or immature?
Professionals are always in control of their emotions and their egos. They are confident but never cocky or arrogant.
You don’t want to be friends. You don’t care about being popular. You want only to be seen as competent and effective.
How’s That for Unconventional?
Some of this thinking can take your breath away. If it doesn’t, you must have worked outside the Anglo-American commercial culture for the past 50 years. If so, maybe you’re lucky. You’ll have fewer bad habits to overcome.
Things Have Changed
The point is, you don’t want to act or sound like other sales people. Most people dislike sales people who behave too much like the stereotypes.
Why risk provoking a negative reflex? Wouldn’t it be better to act differently than most other sales people do?
Embrace the difference. It’s not necessarily a weakness. And it can be a real source of strength.
As you read the ideas that follow, I ask you to keep an open mind — no matter how negatively you may react at first.
How Well Can These ‘Crazy Ideas’ Work for You?
The ideas make sense. They work for me. Jim and Ari have both helped me improve my selling. Maybe they can help you.
Sure, your selling circumstances are likely to be different from mine. Maybe you sell directly to consumers rather than to businesses. Maybe your customers follow a simpler decision process than mine do. Maybe your product isn’t as complex as mine.
Maybe Jim’s and Ari’s ideas won’t work in your culture. Maybe your sales manager would hate this approach. Maybe it would be too hard for you to execute these ideas, considering your personality, your training, your experience and your habits.
So How Much Do You Like the Way You Do Prospecting Now?
All those factors are worth considering. But before you dismiss any ideas that would cause you to change, answer these questions honestly:
- How comfortable are you with the way you prospect today?
- How often do you feel reluctant to pick up the phone or walk into a sales call without an appointment?
- How well do you like yourself when you’re prospecting?
- How often do your prospects get show irritation or frustration because you’ve disturbed or distracted them?
- How often have you been accused of being pushy or aggressive?
- How comfortable are you talking with your prospects about their goals, desires and concerns rather than your products or services?
- How adequate is your current pipeline?
- How confident are you that you don’t need to win every opportunity that comes your way?
To the degree that any of the preceding questions point to more than one or two challenges in the way you prospect today, Ari’s and Jim’s ideas may work even better for you then they have for me.
Next time we’ll talk about ways you can test this mindset without much risk.
Stay fresh.
– Scott Silverback
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