Actually, it’s a great profession, but the way we do it calls into question its integrity and makes it harder than it has to be.
One of my clients was spending six hours per week manually doing a task that there were automated solutions for. Accessing that automation would save him time, increase accuracy with his employees, and give him excellent visibility into his team’s performance. I had met someone in my referral network who offered this type of solution. Allowing others access to my clients is a sacred trust for me. I have to know you, like you, and trust you. I had known this individual for a year, everyone around him had great things to say about him, and so I made an introduction.
Because of how seriously I take my client’s trust, I always stay in touch with them throughout the process.
“How’s it going with the person that I referred to you?” I asked my client.
“We’ll see. A bit too salesy for me, but I have a high radar for that kind of stuff,” he texted me back, acknowledging the possibility he may be a bit harsh.
“I trust your instincts and you should too,” I responded.
The weekend went by and I got an email from my client on Monday night. “Hey, just wanted to let you know I haven’t gotten any further response after two pings.”
I wrote him back apologizing that evening, and followed up with a phone call first thing Tuesday morning. During the call he shared with me in more detail how the process went. He felt as if the salesperson was just trying to make a sale and get to a contract without doing the necessary work of understanding my client’s issue and explaining how his product could help. My client was great about it, and just wanted me to be in the loop on how things were going. He knows how seriously I take the trust he has in me, and assured me that he didn’t see this as any reflection on me. Frankly, it was really kind and speaks volume about the extraordinary people I have as clients. He was even still open to doing business with the person that I referred, providing the solution truly met his need.
This is the key point—if the solution met his need. Regrettably, in my client’s view, this salesperson did nothing to gain an understanding of what his pain points were. My client didn’t feel like the salesperson had an adequate appreciation for his problem, and—in turn—couldn’t offer an adequate solution. In the nearly two decades I’ve spent developing salespeople, it’s an all too pervasive problem. A salesperson wants to rush to a decision before they’ve done the full and proper work of understanding what problem they are trying to solve and how their product does the job. It’s the car salesman showing a growing family who came in for a seven passenger vehicle a five-passenger sedan. It’s the investment professional offering a product before properly understanding what their prospective client’s future goals are. I recently was at a networking event and the financial planner in our group was sharing a meeting she had with a new client. As she was relaying the story to us, she observed “Clients never fire their advisor for performance. It’s always for service.”
While she didn’t say this, it’s been my experience that service almost always means communication (or lack thereof). It’s failing to return messages or phone calls. It’s listening to respond rather than to understand. So what can salespeople do to be less slimy and increase their incomes? As you may imagine, it’s simple:
- Listen. Please listen. No, I mean really listen. Please. I’m begging you. Anyone ever heard the good ole “God gave you two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion?” Well, as opposed to getting offended that someone said something so direct to us, perhaps we could explore it for its wisdom and application. I’ve watched countless salespeople talk for 15 minutes about how great their product is, oftentimes right through the time that a person was ready to make a decision. For the love of God, salespeople, please stop thinking that it’s the duration of your speech that creates results. It’s the quality of the solution you provide to their problem, not the quantity of your words that persuades people to buy. Listen so you can understand their pain and then guide them to your solution.
- Increase the quality and quantity of your questions. I recently was on a call with a client who is a poor communicator. He is making great strides, and there is still some considerable opportunity in front of him. In our last coaching call I asked, “Permission to speak freely?” He agreed. If you wonder why I ask that, see my last blog.
“I think you are more concerned with being interesting than being interested.” It’s a distinction I once heard Jim Collins make and what a powerful one it is!
“You’re right,” he responded. “One of the things that has stuck out to me since the first time that I met you was the quality of the questions that you ask. I want to get better at that.”
In his particular case, we went on to explore the progression from being the person who has all the answers to believing the right answer is in the room and the leader’s job is to discover it.
- Let them experience. Why do dealerships always ask you to test drive the car before they will give you a proposal? Simple, they know their odds of you purchasing go up significantly when you take visual ownership of the vehicle. When you sit behind the wheel you can imagine showing your friends your new car, parking it in the garage for the first time, taking it on your family vacation you have planned this summer, and the list goes on. Yet, too often salespeople rush through this step, if they even do it at all. One of the most powerful things that I have learned in my enrollment process is the value of offering people multiple opportunities to experience my coaching before I will even provide them with any proposal. If the coaching I provide isn’t what they need or we aren’t a great fit, I’ll gladly refer them to a coach who solves their problem or is a better fit for them. I recently was speaking to a new client about a program I am creating in June. I wanted his feedback on some pricing. After I described it to him, I asked him what he thought the program would retail for. His answer was three times what I intend to charge for it. When I shared that with him, he said “That’s because I have had the opportunity to experience how powerful your coaching is.” Experience matters!
- Serve, don’t sell. One of my newer clients is a salesperson—I’m working with quite a few of them these days, which is super fun because it’s how I cut my teeth in business—and the first time I raised this concept to him, he tilted his head as if to say, “Are you kidding me? That’s the best you’ve got?” For three months we would speak during and in between sessions until one day he realized the reason that he wasn’t getting the results he wanted was because his process was all about him. He wasn’t adequately communicating how he could actually help people because he was too busy telling everyone how great his product was. He also prides himself on being “low pressure.” Can we just stop with that language, by the way? I mean, seriously, we aren’t using it to make our clients feel better. We are using it to make ourselves feel better because inside we are deeply insecure about our profession, because we are probably aware of the fact that we aren’t serving people as powerfully as we could. Ok, my rant is over. Let’s get back to the story. In our last session we were exploring how to create more referrals. I asked him how many he had given out. The answer was one, which was very close to the zero he received. No one cares how great your product is or that you are the best salesperson in the world. They care about what your product will do for them and how you will look after them throughout the process and especially after they say yes.
Offer solutions to problems. Sounds simple, right? It is. It also doesn’t sound slimy at all. It sounds like a really noble endeavor.