Want to sell more? Try the truth.

A perfect example of the buyer being "fed a story" by a vendor.

I recently interviewed a network security manager while doing customer research for a client. His name is Alan. He works in the IT department of a large UK company. His story is similar to those I hear from countless others around the world who describe their buying process to me.

Alan's story shows quite clearly how vendors lose sales because they deceive their clients.

"I went to a seminar that included product pitches," Alan told me. "One sales guy made a presentation about his product, an appliance that lets people access the corporate network remotely."

The product was an SSL VPN appliance. SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer, the standard used for encrypting information sent out over the Internet. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, a private connection to a network. If an IT manager plugs one of these SSL VPN boxes into his corporate network, people using their PCs to access the network remotely can do so via a secure and private connection.

"As this sales guy was presenting," Alan said, "he kept saying, 'this appliance is completely clientless.'" In other words, the sales guy was telling the IT audience that you could install the appliance on your network and then people could access the network through this device, without having to load anything special on their PCs.

In a typical "client/server" network, remote PCs are the "clients" which access a server. In this case, the client PCs would be accessing the server through the virtual private network appliance. And, as any good IT manager knows, in order for a client PC to access a device of some kind, the PC has to contain some software that interacts with the device being accessed.

That client software has to be installed on the PC and maintained/updated by the IT manager. This just makes more work for the IT manager, which is why the vendor of this device was so determined to state that his product didn't require any software on the client PC.

Too bad it was a lie.

Alan said that everyone in the room knew it was a lie, as soon as the guy said it. As the salesperson kept talking, everyone was looking at each other and rolling their eyes. Someone finally interrupted the sales guy and shouted out a question.

"How can this be a clientless application? If there isn't any software on the client PC, how does the PC access the network, and how can the network recognize the person's PC when they log on?"

The sales guy responded, "When the user logs onto the appliance for the first time, a little piece of Java code is sent to the PC."

Gotcha!

The questioner in the audience shot back: "So what you're saying is there will, in fact, be software on the PC! That there is software on the client. That means this is not a 'clientless' device!'" Everyone nodded and harrumphed in agreement.

"Even when he was confronted with the truth, the sales guy refused to admit it," Alan told me. "He was adamant. He kept insisting that his product was 'clientless,' because that little piece of code didn't require a 'formal license' that you had to pay for or install separately."

Needless to say, no one in that room will ever buy anything from that vendor, and not just because the sales guy was lying through his teeth. There was a bigger issue involved.

What you don't know will hurt you.

We all know about computer viruses. They succeed by exploiting vulnerabilities in networks and the devices connected to those networks. Let's say you were the IT manager who installed this SSL VPN device in your network. As the sales guy said, whenever someone logged onto that device for the first time, the device would automatically load that little bit of Java code onto the person's PC.

Of course, that's exactly what many viruses do. They load a little bit of code onto the PCs of unsuspecting users, with the intent of sabotaging the PC or using the PC for nefarious purposes. The network security manager who allowed that little bit of Java code to travel through the lying vendor's "security" appliance and out to individual PCs would also be creating a pathway by which a virus could propagate. Yes, you could argue that the chances of this happening might be remote, but if something did go wrong, you wouldn't want to be the IT manager who bought and installed a device that introduced a vulnerability into the network.

After he told me his story, Alan wondered "how companies can be so arrogant, and think that they won't be called on the carpet for this kind of gross misrepresentation." In my experience, the arrogance comes from their belief that the customer is stupid.

In fact, customers - especially business-to-business customers - are incredibly experienced buyers. They don't have to take any vendor's word for anything anymore. They have access to other vendors' counter claims. They can post their questions on discussion groups and get relevant, helpful, immediate answers. They can buy and download buyers' guides in seconds.

Buyers have learned, through their own bitter experience, which questions need to be asked. They have also learned how to pick up on even the tiniest clues during the buying process. They think, "Ah, that's what's really going on," when the sales guy makes an offhand comment. And they pay close attention when one of their questions causes the sales guy to squirm slightly just before he launches into his well-rehearsed answer.

I call this squirm-inducer the Terrible Question.

The buyer's friend, the salesperson's nemesis: The Terrible Question

Salespeople who are not telling the whole truth live in daily fear of the Terrible Question (or Questions, if the product is seriously flawed). They hope against hope that no one will ask it.

Back in the days before Google and discussion threads, a salesperson could get through a whole day or even a whole week without being asked the Terrible Question. Not anymore. Now even the most clueless buyer can see the seller's dirty underwear in seconds, simply by typing [seller's product type] and the word "problem" into Google.

There are no ignorant buyers. Salespeople who bank on buyer ignorance will not make their quota.

When the Terrible Question is asked, the sales guy often does what the SSL VPN sales guy did. He will try to minimize the buyer's concern. You can see this "technique" in action when you try to say "NO" to a telemarketer, who has been taught to pretend to empathize with your concern, then proceed to tell you that your concerns are unfounded.

"Well, Mrs. 'Cheerago,' I can understand why you would be concerned, but honestly, all I'm proposing to do is…" Sales training "gurus" spend hours teaching salespeople how to minimize the buyer's concern. This is manipulation, pure and simple, and it does backfire.

What buyers want - and what they will gladly accept - is the truth. How refreshing would it be if the SSL VPN sales guy had just told the truth about that little bit of Java code, and also had a solution to the network security problem.

"We could have set up the device so it automatically downloaded a little bit of code to the client PC the first time the client PC logged onto the device," the sales guy would say. "That would have been more convenient for you in terms of network administration. But it would also have created a possible vulnerability in your network that someone could exploit. So instead, users who want to access the device for the first time will go to a website we've set up for you. The user will type in a security code you provide. The website will send a command to the device, which will then send the little bit of Java code and an installation wizard to the user's email. You will also get an email saying that has just happened. It will then take about 15 seconds for the user to install the code. Then they're ready to start communicating with the device."

If the sales guy had said this, the IT folks in the seminar would have nodded, and decided that the vendor was taking a prudent approach to the problem, while still providing the benefit of an "almost automatic" installation process. The sales guy would end up making friends instead of enemies. The marketer for the SSL VPN company could use an honest and comforting theme: "Automated installation, uncompromising security."

But the salesperson didn't say this. Instead, he lied.

Why do salespeople lie?

Here are some of the most common reasons why salespeople lie.

• They are ignorant of customer realities. Product developers often make false assumptions about what their customers are experiencing, what they prefer, and what they want to avoid. Their assumptions lead to bad decisions. For example, the marketer and managers at the SSL VPN device company assumed that IT managers hated to install and maintain software on individual PCs. True enough. But IT managers must also keep the network secure. They can easily be fired if they fail to do so. Security is one of those "gating factors" which drive the rest of the buying decision.

  Developers make false assumptions because they have failed to do the appropriate pre-development customer research. When the product comes out, there are problems - problems that the customer notices right away. The customer starts asking Terrible Questions.

  The sales guy out there in the field has to sell what he has, even if it has glaring problems. He will keep trying and trying, because that's what salespeople get paid to do. If he keeps encountering the same sales barrier, he will go back to his boss and say, "They aren't buying because of this glaring problem." The boss will usually reply: "Sell as many as you can anyway. If you sell enough, we'll be able to afford to fix the glaring problem."

  The sales guy goes back out into the market, looking for stupid customers and lying when a customer asks the Terrible Question.

• They choose to ignore customer realities. Even when confronted with the glaring problem, product developers will minimize it. They'll tell the sales guy: "You're just not pitching it properly. If they really understood the benefits of this approach, they wouldn't fixate anymore on this one issue." So what if that little Java code compromises the customer's entire network? Surely the productivity they gain with the application will make it all worthwhile. Besides, it's just a little security hole. What's the big deal?

  As I mentioned before, the big deal is this: If the IT department people bought that program and that program compromised the company's network, the IT department people would be fired. Fear of being fired is the main motivator behind all IT decisions now. I hear that from every single IT person I interview.

• They underestimate the role that trust plays in the buying process. When you go into a McDonald's, anywhere in the world, you know exactly what is going to happen to you. You will smell hot grease and "special sauce" when you walk in the door. You will be able to see all the menu choices on a large billboard above the heads of the counter workers. You will wait in line, then walk up to an employee who has been trained to behave a certain way. You will tell the person what you want, give her a relatively small amount of money, and then stand aside for a minute while she puts your hamburger and fries into a bag. You will get a drink from her or from the drink machine.

  When you sit down to eat, the hamburger you expected and the hamburger you actually end up eating will be very similar. Sure, the bun will be a bit soggier than you would like, and the meat may have more gristle. But the secret sauce and the pickles and the bacon and cheese will be just as you imagined, and satisfying enough for you to overlook the other relatively small disappointments.

  In other words, before going into any McDonald's restaurant, your brain knows exactly how the hamburger is going to taste and how you'll feel afterwards. That's the power of a well-known brand.

  I was at the Baltimore airport recently, in a new terminal that has several eating establishments in a row. Most of the counters had only one or two people standing in line. But people were lined up ten deep at the McDonald's counter.

  Your brand is the promise you keep. Anyone who has been to any McDonald's once has experienced the promise being kept, and can rightfully expect the same promise to be kept at any McDonald's anywhere in the world. The customer trusts McDonald's to deliver a specific experience, and is not disappointed.

  Contrast this with the typical software sale. Better yet, imagine if McDonald's sold hamburgers in the same way that software vendors sell their software.

  The menu board would either contain too-generic descriptions ("satisfying lunch"), or too-specific descriptions ("Meat, sauce, bread, pickles").

  You'd have to ask the counter person questions. "Does the 'satisfying lunch' menu include hamburgers?" Or, "Does 'fresh ground meat, secret sauce, sesame seed bun, and pickles' really just mean hamburger - in other words, you will grill the meat, you will put secret sauce and pickles on the bun, and you will put the burger in the bun with the sauce and pickles?"

  Software vendors seldom call a burger a burger. Instead, they talk about "benefits" that could be applied to any similar product ("satisfying lunch") or "features" - which are really just ingredients in the food world ("fresh ground meat," "secret sauce," etc.). No wonder they're having problems selling.

  If burgers were sold and delivered like software, when your burger was prepared and ready for you, the counter person would just hand the burger to you. You would be expected to find a wrapper for it, so the secret sauce didn't ruin your clothes. As you started to eat, you'd realize that there were no pickles on your hamburger. You would have to go back to the counter and wait in line while your burger got cold. "I thought this burger was going to have pickles," you'd say. "Can I have some pickles?"

  The counter person wouldn't say anything. She'd either suddenly disappear into the back room, or pretend she didn't hear you.

  If you insisted that she acknowledge you, she'd loudly insist that there were, in fact, pickles in your burger - in spite of the evidence to the contrary ("This is a 'clientless' device!"). Or, she'd say, "We ran out of pickles two hours ago. We have no more pickles." This is how software companies tend to treat their customers as soon as the contract is signed.

  If you had to return to that software burger joint some other day, because it was the only place open, you would expect the experience to be unpleasant.

  "It's probably going to be difficult to order and get what we want," you'd say to your spouse. "And we'll have to remember to bring our own napkins, so we can eat without ruining our clothes."

  When you went into the joint, you'd be careful how you ordered. You would ask specific questions. "You do have pickles today, right? Any other ingredients missing? Will there be meat in my burger?" When you got the burger, you'd double-check to make sure everything was there.

  The entire experience would be dominated by mistrust. You wouldn't believe anything the person told you. You would view the information on the menu board with suspicion. You would expect the experience to be unpleasant; in fact, you'd assume that the person selling you the burger was just waiting to play you for a fool. You would also assume that if you didn't keep an eye on the person behind the counter, you would be disappointed or even harmed in some way.

  Contrast this with the real-life McDonald's experience, where your trust is rewarded from the beginning of the experience to the end. You imagine it, you experience it, you appreciate it. You are served efficiently and with respect. You walk away thinking you will be happy to go through that experience again in the future.

Training salespeople to tell the truth.

No product is perfect. All products have their strengths and weaknesses. Buyers know this. Salespeople try to pretend that the product is perfect, when buyers know perfectly well that it is not. As customers make their buying decisions, they weigh the imperfections against the attributes that are important to them.

Salespeople don't have to lie to sell. They simply have to understand how their customers weigh the tradeoffs, and then help their customers make the best decision. Yes, this means that sometimes they will have to walk away from a sale, when it becomes obvious that their product is not the best solution for the customer. But as they do so, they'll be creating an invaluable reference. That customer will go out of his or her way to work with that trustworthy salesperson in the future, and to refer others to that salesperson. Over the course of a salesperson's career, if the salesperson always tells the truth, he can build a literal army of people who will look for opportunities to send business to him.

Here are the steps you need to take to increase your sales:

1. You must teach your salespeople how the customer makes buying decisions. It doesn't matter why you developed your product in the first place; as valid as your decisions might have been, customers always have other issues they consider more important. When I first start working with a client, I ask the managers to tell me what they think their customers want and what is important to them. Then I interview their customers. I always get a different story from the customers. The customer's story reveals tradeoffs, additional buying process participants, and critical issues that my client had either overlooked or dismissed as irrelevant.

If the salesperson is operating without respecting the customer's reality, the salesperson will fail.

2. You must teach your salespeople how to listen. Why? Because salespeople don't listen well. Most salespeople get into sales because they love to talk.

A recent Dilbert cartoon showed Alice explaining to a co-worker (in front of the pointy-haired boss, who was staring off into space as Alice was talking) that the pointy-haired boss only listens when he's talking. This is true of most salespeople.

Salespeople must be trained to listen while the customer is talking, and to hear what the customer is really saying. They must also be trained to observe the non-verbal signals that the customer is sending, because customers never tell the whole truth during the buying process. If the salesperson can observe the non-verbal clues the customer is sending, he can stop his pitch mid-sentence and say, "You look a little doubtful. Should we stop here and discuss this for a minute? Do you have a concern you want to talk about?" Nine times out of ten, the customer will think, "Wow - this guy is actually paying attention to my needs. Maybe this will work out all right after all." The customer will then admit that he does, in fact, have a problem, and will describe his concern to the sales guy. The sales guy will then be able to address that problem and work on the solution with the customer.

Here's what's really interesting about this approach. Customers will out of their way to give their business to a salesperson who does this - even if the product isn't the best product for the customer's needs - because they appreciate how the salesperson treated them. As I mentioned earlier, buyers always try to reward trustworthy salespeople with more business or referrals.

3. You must teach your salespeople to investigate before pitching. The best salespeople don't start talking until they have listened to everything the customer has to say. Then, as they make their pitch, they cover the issues that the customer wants them to cover. They omit the issues that aren't a big deal in the customer's mind. They make references to comments that the customer made while the customer was explaining his situation, his requirements, and his concerns. This builds trust. The customer will start to relax and realize that he is not going to regret buying from this salesperson.

4. You must convince your salespeople that you want them to tell the truth. It's not so much that salespeople are inherently dishonest (although they tend to be fast-talkers who grow up thinking they can talk their way out of anything). It's that they believe their bosses expect them to make the sale, no matter what. It is therefore the responsibility of their bosses to set the record straight. You simply can't send your salespeople out into the marketplace armed with deceptive claims such as "this is a clientless device."

Successful sales start with informed and honorable managers.

In your role as the head of the company, you need to be aware of how your customers make their buying decisions. You need to interview them, yourself. You need to find out what their tradeoffs are, and the situations where your product is either appropriate or inappropriate. You will then be able to direct your salespeople to the best opportunities, where your product is a good fit. You will also be able to help them identify situations where the product simply won't work, and tell them they will never get in trouble for walking away from an inappropriate sale. You must then keep this promise. And, of course, you must continually work on improving your product so it does a better job of meeting customer needs.

Every time your salesperson walks away from an inappropriate opportunity, three things will happen. The salesperson won't waste a single minute of his busy day trying to make a bad sale. The customer will remember that the salesperson was honest and helpful, and will be happy to refer others to you when they ask, "Do you know anyone who makes a good [your type of product]?" And all the sales you make will lead to more sales, because you will only be selling to the people who will be happy with your product.

This is how honesty increases your revenues.

As you well know, you are now doing business in a world where it's easier than ever to start a business, where you compete with people all over the world, where unique products become commodities overnight, and where buyers have access to all your dirty laundry. This is your current operating environment.

In order to succeed in this environment, your product has to meet real customer needs, and your salespeople have to be honest about your product's capabilities. If you're competing with four other companies for a customer's business, and your salesperson is the one who listened and responded courteously and truthfully, the customer will go out of his way to make sure his money ends up in your pocket. And your salespeople will be able tell their kids they do honorable work.

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A personal note: Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. My husband and I have been engaged in a battle against cancer. He was diagnosed with "head and neck cancer, unknown primary," shortly after Thanksgiving of 2005, and started treatment in January - 30 radiation treatments and 5 chemo treatments. It's been rough. Radiation to the neck area makes eating and swallowing virtually impossible. Thankfully, his prognosis is good. The lymph gland containing cancer cells, which had suddenly swollen to the size of a small cell phone, appears to be completely normal now. When Philip feels well enough to edit again, we'll get another "blessay" up on the site.

I never have been a daily blogger; I'm too busy doing client work, and I don't post until I have a "complete solution" edited and ready to share. Feel free to subscribe if you want to be alerted when I post something new. Your email address will be stored securely, and will never be used for any other purpose.

Thanks, and I wish you all good health.

- kz