By Kristin Zhivago on Jul 19, 2006
EVA is a system that lets salespeople (or anyone else, for that matter) use their cell phones to call in after a meeting with a client and get all sorts of things done. They simply call a number, give commands (such as "create an email"), and start talking. Their voice is recorded, and later listened to by a human being, who enters the data into a sales automation or CRM system.
Salespeople can set up appointments, say what happened in the meeting--including next steps--and provide information for their expense reports. They can also instruct the data entry person to send an email to the person they just visited, as they are leaving the prospect's parking lot.
In this podcast, I interviewed the VP of worldwide sales for EVA, Eric Tippetts, and Gil Cargill, president and founder of the Cargill Consulting Group. Eric says that the average EVA customer spends about $99 a month for the service, which is available 24/7 for calls from salespeople and busy executives.
Interview conducted via a Skype connection...voice quality is a bit fuzzy. Future podcasts will be recorded differently.
About 45 minutes.
By Kristin Zhivago on Dec 15, 2006
True story, happened this month.
A man has recently taken up the game of golf. He is working hard on perfecting his swing, visiting the driving range every few days to hit a bucket of balls as straight and as far as he can.
As the fall has turned to winter, he has found it necessary to wear some sort of winter gloves while practicing his swing at the driving range. Normal cold-weather gloves are either too thick or not "grippy" enough to hold a club properly. So the man decides to make a special trip to a "golf warehouse" store. It's a bit of a drive, but he goes there because he knows it has a large selection of golf clothing and accessories. He is expecting to find all of the different models of winter gloves, and try them on.
Let's stop this specific, real-life story for a second and look at the broader implications. Here we have someone with a definite need. Someone who has decided what would meet that need, and is going out of his way to purchase the best solution to that need.
This is the beginning of the buying process, a moment in time that happens literally billions of times a day across the globe.
At this very moment, someone has decided they need your kind of product or service, and they are looking for you. They are searching for you online, or by asking others. Or, even in this day and age, by looking in the phone book. Once they've found you, they will probably decide that you should be able to provide what they need.
No matter what the product or service, no matter how complex the buying process, it all starts here - with a moment of need, followed by the search for a solution, and the decision that a particular store or vendor has the right solution.
If this is your customer, this is your sale to lose. The buyer is ready. The buyer is coming to you, money in hand, with the full expectation that you will have what is required, and you will make it easy for him to buy it. The buyer has done his part. He's looked for you, found you, and is coming to you.
Now let's go back to our golf glove example.
The man arrives at the large golf warehouse store. He goes in, and walks over to the golf glove section. There are dozens of different gloves there, but he can't find any winter gloves, even though it's December. He goes to the salesman at the counter.
First he has to get the salesman's attention. The salesman doesn't seem at all interested in helping the man. The salesman is always looking in another direction and moving away. This is irritating, but the man did make a special trip, after all - so he persists. He finally corners the salesman, and asks, "Do you have any winter golf gloves?"
"No," the salesman answers, and turns away.
Now the man is really irritated. So he says, loudly, to the back of the salesman's receding head, "Will you have any coming in soon?"
"No, they were supposed to order some, but they didn't," the salesman says, over his shoulder.
The salesman not only doesn't care, but is now hostile because his bad attitude has been exposed. He is also playing the victim card. "They" didn't order the gloves. More importantly, "I" don't care. So what are you going to do about it, Mr. Pitiful Customer? Why can't you just go somewhere else, and leave me alone?
Sale lost. More importantly, many sales lost.
This same man will be making many more golf-related purchases over the years. As he walks out of the store today, he makes a firm decision to avoid this store in the future.
The man drives to another, smaller golf store, closer to home. The selection is limited to only two brands, but both are well-designed and well-made. The store had made careful decisions about what to stock. The man finds a great pair of winter gloves. This smaller store has just gained a customer that the larger store literally threw away.
Meanwhile, the owner of the rude-salesman golf warehouse store is running ads on the radio and in newspapers. He is busy buying merchandise and meeting payroll. He's doing everything he can to bring new customers into the store. But, when they get there, the salesman's attitude is driving them away.
There are numerous ways to analyze this interaction, but it boils down to one thing: The salesman didn't give a damn about the customer and the customer's need. Imagine if he did…
"Winter gloves? Oh, I'm so sorry. They were supposed to come in, but they haven't arrived. Let me check on the computer and see if they're coming in over the next week. I can call you when they come in."
Or, "Winter gloves? Absolutely. They're in the storeroom, they just haven't been put on the shelves yet. Let's try on a pair of summer gloves, and once we've determined your size, I'll go in the back and get a pair for you to try on."
Or, "Winter gloves? We don't carry them. But we should. Another customer came in the other day looking for a pair. Let me call the buyer right now and find out how soon we could get some in here. If you give me your address, and we try on a pair of gloves here to get your size, I could call you when they come in and send them to you after we've made payment arrangements."
Yes, or No?
I recently interviewed the owner of a retail store. This man owns a very successful small boat dealership. He's bright and driven. He has a rule, one that he drills into his employees over and over. The rule: Every interaction with the customer begins with YES. No matter what. Every interaction. Yes, we can do that. Yes, we have them, and here they are. Yes, I can help you solve that problem. Yes, that's a good idea, let me see what I can do to institute it.
No wonder he's so successful.
When your customers interact with your company, what message do they get from your people and your website? "Yes, I can help you"? Or…"No, go away and leave me alone"?
Want more sales? Focus on this aspect of your business.
Lou Gerstner's famous statement is true: "People don't do what you expect but what you inspect." You can't assume that your employees are saying "Yes."
Make it clear that every transaction must start with "Yes." Check - continually. Fire if necessary; it won't take much to get the point across. And keep checking. Someone who was good in an interview might be a bear behind the counter. One surly employee can cost you a lot of business.
By Kristin Zhivago on Jan 19, 2007
In any sales situation, the seller wants the buyer to buy. The buyer, meanwhile, is considering the purchase - and alternative courses of action. Most sales training gurus would call those alternatives "objections," and salespeople are trained to "counter" those objections.
But this usually backfires.
Here are some typical "alternative courses of action" that could be floating around in the buyer's mind as she listens to a sales pitch:
The least effective salesperson will talk and talk even though the buyer has made it clear, via body language and a sudden drop in interest level, that one of the alternatives has become more appealing as the salesperson prattled on. This salesperson has lost the sale, but continues to jabber, while the buyer is devising her exit strategy ("How can I get this person out of my office in the shortest amount of time and with the least amount of bother?"). This is one of the most common situations in sales.
A slightly better salesperson will notice that the buyer is now crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair, and that she has started to frown. He will stop, and ask if she has a concern.
If it's too late, the buyer will pretend that there isn't a problem, immediately change her body language, and continue to devise her exit strategy as the salesperson resumes his pitch.
If it's not too late, the buyer will express her concern.
And here is where we separate "slightly better" salespeople from "stellar" salespeople.
The "slightly better" salesperson, as soon as the buyer expresses her concern, will start pitching again. He will treat the buyer as a silly child who just isn't aware of all the reasons why his product would be better than her alternative. This will only alienate and irritate the buyer, who really did have a valid concern, and who will now regret that she shared her concern with the salesperson. "I should have kept my mouth shut," she will think. She will become more determined than ever not to give this salesperson her business.
The stellar salesperson will sense a concern, and stop pitching. He will actually turn off the presentation as soon as the buyer has expressed her concern. He will start to encourage the buyer to talk more about her concern, and will not sell during this entire exchange. He will agree with the buyer about her alternative courses of action. "Well, it's true, you could put this off right now," he will say. "Because you're right, if you wait a year or two, a new, better version will come out. We introduce new versions every six months, for example."
Then, the salesperson would let there be silence. This is the hardest thing for salespeople, and one of the main reasons that salespeople have so much trouble communicating with engineers, finance people, and anyone else who likes to compose their sentences in their heads before speaking. Not to mention buyers who are thinking over their alternatives. What will happen during this silence?
Whatever the salesperson said just before the silence will ring in the buyer's mind. "We introduce new versions every six months, for example." The buyer will take this new information and add it to her thinking process. She will then ask a question: "If I buy from you, will I be able to upgrade for a reasonable price when you come out with a new version?"
Still sitting back, not selling, the salesperson will say, "Yes, we have an upgrade path. The cost of an upgrade is always about 1/3 the cost of the full program." More silence.
What is happening during this silence? The salesperson is letting the buyer go through her own buying process. He is not dumping more data on her, when she is not ready for it (which is what most salespeople do). He is not treating her as if she is stupid for considering alternatives. He is acknowledging that there could be alternatives, and he is letting her think them through.
Most importantly, he is taking advantage of a fact that is seldom, if ever mentioned in sales training materials: Buyers want to buy. Buyers want the purchase to be easy. It's easier to buy from a salesperson who is sitting in front of you than it is to keep looking. But it has to be the buyer's decision. The seller has to give her the time and space to make that decision.
The seller is also stepping back a little, letting the buyer come forward if she wishes. In the seller/buyer dance, the seller is letting the buyer take the next step. The buyer has now had time to consider her options, and has decided that her concern about obsolescence isn't that critical, because the seller has an upgrade path. She has now countered the objection in her own mind.
Now she will say to the salesperson: "Well, since you have a clear upgrade path, and I really do need to get this problem solved, I'm comfortable with this. Let's go back to the presentation."
The salesperson can now start pitching again, while keeping an eye on the buyer's responses.
Note that the stellar salesperson never countered the buyer's objections, but carefully listened to them and, if they made sense for the buyer, even agreed with them. Most importantly, he was willing to walk away.
I do need to note that this is not the insincere agreement so typical of telesales call techniques. "Oh, yes, Mrs. 'Zheerazho,' I understand why you would say that. I'm sure you are good at repairing your own computers. But wouldn't you still want a certified technician to come out and evaluate your current networked PCs and help you improve them?" This is not the same as the technique I just described. This is just manipulation, pure and simple, and it alienates and irritates the customer, who immediately thinks, "How can I get this creep off the phone as quickly as possible?"
Instead of countering objections, the best salespeople use the jujitsu method, where they don't fight the objection, they accept it and work with it. And, they are willing to walk away.
What's interesting is, when the seller is willing to walk away, the buyer often follows.
By Kristin Zhivago on Dec 22, 2006
I'm in the midst of rewriting about 50 "sales plays" for a client. These are intranet-based instructions for salespeople making outgoing calls to potential clients. Each "sales play" describes the product or product combination being sold (the "offering"), the target audience for that offering, what's included in the offering, why the client should be interested, and suggested voicemail, phone call, and email copy that the salesperson can use when pitching the offering to a client.
Rewriting these sales plays is reminding me how impossible it is to be a salesperson who is depending on copy written by copywriters who have never had to make a cold call. The plays I'm changing, although each one is written about a different product, all use the same language. They all talk about the customer's need and the product's benefits.
"Has your network gotten too complicated? Are you looking for ways to simplify? This [offering] will increase your efficiency, and lower your administrative overhead."
They use the exact same phrases for the "benefits," no matter which product they are describing. The customer has heard all of these benefits a thousand times. Plus, you can't say these words to real clients in real calls.
It's not the fault of the marketers, really. This is what they have been taught to do.
Marketing people often complain about salespeople who create their own "unauthorized" materials. These materials tend to be graphically crude and legally dangerous. They are filled with clip art instead of professional-looking stock photos, and they make competitive claims that the company couldn't defend in court.
Why do salespeople take time away from commission-earning activities to create their own materials? Most salespeople would rather be out selling, not fussing with presentations and handouts.
They create their own materials because the materials they get from marketers are often insulting to the real, live customers that salespeople talk to every day.
For example, if you're selling a healthcare solution to a surgeon, and you want to introduce the idea of a "patient safety initiative," which is one of the big issues in the healthcare industry right now, you don't start the call by asking the doctor a question that one marketing copywriter suggested: "Do you care about patient safety?" The doctors I've interviewed all say that the reason they're doctors is because they love helping people get well. Asking a doctor if he cares about patient safety is rude and insulting. It's a slap in the face to the very essence of the doctor's character and altruistic motivation. This one question would ruin the chances of the salesperson selling that product - or any product, for that matter - to that doctor.
The basic problem boils down to this: Marketers don't know who they're talking to.
They write copy to people they're imagining instead of people they actually know. The target audience of that copy knows immediately that the person writing the copy has no idea who he is, what he's going through, and what he needs.
It's as if marketers are writing to "Joe Bob," who nods, gratefully, at each new "benefit" thrown his way. "This widget will make you sexy, Joe Bob!" Joe Bob nods, smiling. "This widget will lower your costs and increase your productivity!" Joe Bob nods even more enthusiastically, and smiles even wider.
But in the real world, where salespeople call real customers, there are no Joe Bobs. There is Donovan, who has been around the block 3,000 times and wants the salesperson to stop talking about vague, silly promises and start describing exactly what the product does and how it does it. There is Susan, who runs the IT department at a large company, who has 250 people working for her, and who has very specific questions that the salesperson must answer. "Yes, that's all very nice, but what is the cycle time? That's what is going to make the most difference for us. I've researched you and your competitors, and talked to other people who have installed these things. And it all boils down to cycle time. What exactly is your cycle time?"
The solution is simple, but seldom done: Marketers need to get to know current customers, personally. They need to interview people who have bought the product already, people who are similar to the people who haven't yet bought the product.
Why don't marketers do this? Three reasons: false confidence, false priorities, and fear.
False confidence. Marketers live in a very subjective world. They are surrounded by people in other disciplines who think they know all about marketing, and feel they can tell marketers how to do their job. It's easy to have an opinion on marketing when you've never had to personally suffer the humiliation of a failed campaign. As a defense against these buttinskis, marketers spend hours learning the latest marketing methods, and they vehemently defend those methods.
Unfortunately, this is a false confidence. A method may have worked last quarter, but will fail to work this quarter. Every new marketing method starts out being effective, simply because it is different. Sooner or later (and these days, it is usually sooner), the method settles down to its permanent level of effectiveness, which is usually a 1% to 2% response rate. This is the response rate marketers will get when their copy is addressing Joe Bob instead of the real buyer.
If marketers interviewed customers on a regular basis, after talking to seven to ten people of a given type, they would know what each type of potential buyer wants and needs. They would have a new respect for that buyer. They would see that buyer as an intelligent human being who is pretty smart about what he buys. They would also develop a new confidence, based on objective realities rather than self-delusion. They would be able to write relevant and non-insulting copy, copy that uses the kind of language that real buyers use, copy that the salesperson can use with real confidence, copy that actually addresses the customer's concerns, answers the customer's questions, and makes it easy for the customer to tell the salesperson, "Yes, that sounds good. I'm ready to buy now."
Merry Christmas, salesperson!
False priorities. Marketers are busy people. They spend most of their time cranking out copy, giving other people instructions, or attending meetings. The deadline of the moment seems to be more important than calling customers. Days, weeks, months, and even years can go by without a marketer talking to a real, live customer. No wonder their copy is mostly irrelevant and often insulting.
Most marketers have never done what salespeople must do hundreds of times every single day, all day long: pick up a phone, call a complete stranger, and attempt to convince that stranger that you have something of value for him. These strangers get dozens of these calls every week. They try to get off the phone the second they realize it's a salesperson calling. And they will only stay on the phone longer than a few seconds if the salesperson's first few sentences are exactly right.
Salespeople start out making the calls using the words they've been given by marketing, but those words don't work because they were created by someone who never talks to customers. Salespeople quickly abandon those words, and start experimenting. Pretty soon they find something that works better.
Marketers are lucky! They could write great copy without having to make cold calls. All marketers have to do is call a couple of current customers each week, people who are actually happy to help and proud to share their opinions with a marketer who asks intelligent questions and carefully listens to the answers. Marketers who make these calls will write copy that will work when the salesperson calls strangers who are looking for the same solutions as the company's current customers.
Merry Christmas, salesperson!
Fear. A marketer whose confidence comes from a knowledge of methods - rather than a knowledge of customers - is bound to be afraid. They're living in a very fragile world, one that can be shattered in an instant by someone who actually talks to customers. This is why CEOs tend to pay more attention to salespeople in meetings. Salespeople talk to customers all day long. They can confidently say, "The doctor I sold last week won't like that." Or, "I tried that pitch on a doctor the other day, and he hung up on me."
The problem with salespeople is they only focus on the conquest of the moment. They seldom see "the big picture." Plus, they don't hear the whole truth from customers, because when customers are buying, they are playing poker - with a card shark. They never reveal their whole hand to the salesperson.
Once again, marketers who interview current customers have a distinct advantage. After the purchase is made, the customer is more than willing to reveal what he was really thinking. The customer will even gloat a little. "I knew that what the salesperson was saying wasn't exactly true. Sure enough, I called another one of your customers, who told me that the product really does have a problem in that area. But, I decided to buy anyway, because it did the other things that I needed…"
Marketers are good at spotting trends. After a dozen conversations with similar customers, a good marketer can easily identify the common thread and come up with copy that will be relevant and convincing to prospective customers.
Merry Christmas, salesperson!
Don't force your salespeople to make cold calls with irrelevant and insulting scripts. Instead, insist that every one of your marketers talk to at least two customers every week. By the end of a month, you'll have great buyer perception data, and your marketers will start cranking out copy that actually works.
Merry Christmas!
By Kristin Zhivago on Apr 13, 2007
We had a lot of reasons for moving from Silicon Valley to the New England coast, about ten years ago. None of them had anything to do with the weather, though we liked the idea of having "seasons." We also wanted to live on the water for less than, say, seven million dollars. We had many family members here, and both of us were born here - although we also both moved to California when we were young. Many of our clients were on the East Coast. And we knew it would be a great place to sail.
This background sets the stage for my little salesman's story - a perfect example of selling the wrong way, using the "tell, tell, tell" method instead of the "ask then tell" method.
In the course of our search for a house in New England, one April day we were being driven around some waterfront neighborhoods in Connecticut. The real estate broker was a typical congenial salesperson, a large man who had obviously enjoyed his share of drink, food, and smoke. He was chatting away as he drove us around. We didn't say much, because he was doing all the talking.
All he knew about us was that we were from California, which he learned from the first phone call. That's when he decided he knew all he needed to know about us. That's when he jumped to conclusions. That was his first and most egregious mistake. But he didn't know that. He thought he was smart, because he "knew" so many things about us - all because we were from California.
So here we were, driving around looking at houses, in New England, on a partly sunny spring day. He was chatting away, talking about how the weather is pretty nice almost all year in New England.
"Sure we have seasons, but we also have nice days like this one," he was saying. He assumed, since we were from California, that our biggest objection to moving to New England was going to be the weather. He was having trouble figuring out why anyone would want to move from California to New England - because he had often thought of moving to California, especially in the dead of winter. All of these assumptions were coming from him, not us. We had never said a word about the weather.
As we drove past some waterfront houses, a few clouds gathered in the sky. He was still chatting away about the weather. "Yes, the winters are pretty mild, actually, especially along the water. It's April, and we're pretty much done with winter by now."
Of course, just as he said this, it started to snow.
The broker was horrified. As he turned on his windshield wipers, he stammered, "Well, OK, once and a while, it snows in April. But it doesn't snow hard."
Of course, right then, it started snowing really hard, even though the sun had been out just ten minutes before. Typical New England spring weather.
We couldn't help ourselves. We started laughing. The salesman, who was now speechless for the first time that day, nervously tried to chuckle along with us. In his own mind, however, he had just blown a sale. Here he was driving people around who were from California, and it was snowing, hard, in April. He had nothing left to say.
We didn't leave him in his distress, of course. We told him that our move to New England had nothing to do with the weather.
He was relieved, and as we drove through the snow, he then did what he should have done in the first place: He finally asked us why we were moving to New England.
Want to sell? Ask, then tell.
This salesman's behavior is a perfect example of the typical, dysfunctional "tell, tell, tell" sales method.
Salespeople like to talk, and they need to make a sale. Combine this character trait and this need, and you get the typical unsuccessful sales interaction. The salesman talks and talks, while the customer is standing there with all sorts of questions. The salesman doesn't answer the questions the customer has. The salesman answers the questions he thinks the customer has. Truth be told, he answers the questions he has answers for.
Not only does he fail to answer the customer's actual questions, but as he prattles on, he adds to the customer's concerns.
By the time his verbal spring winds down, the customer has decided that she doesn't want to buy anything from this salesperson or his company, or that the product or service isn't what she wanted anyway.
So she walks away. The salesperson doesn't understand why. Sometimes he finally starts asking questions as the customer is drawing away. But it's too late then, because the customer has already rejected the salesperson's pitch and is making her exit.
What he should have done is start with questions. Sellers don't like to face it, but during the selling process, the customer is playing poker. The customer has no intention of playing into the salesman's hands, because the customer doesn't want to part with her money until she's convinced it's the smart thing to do.
It's a little battle of the wits, and the salesperson is at a disadvantage from the start. The customer knows what the salesperson wants: the customer's money.
The salesperson doesn't know what the customer really wants. That's why he must start by asking questions. He must find out what the customer really wants. If he assumes, he loses.
If the real estate broker had asked us, from the start, why we were moving to New England, by the time it started snowing, it wouldn't have bothered him at all. He could have said, "Well, it's a good thing you're not moving here because of the weather!"
Here's what every good salesperson has to know, before he can successfully sell: What does the buyer want, and what is the buyer concerned about?
That's really all any salesperson has to remember to ask, in a selling situation. He has to overcome his natural tendency to prattle on nervously. He has to be a calm, interested investigator.
Want to sell successfully? Ask, then tell. Find out what they want, and what they're concerned about. The answers to these questions will put you on the right track. You'll be answering their real questions, rather than the questions you think they have.
By Kristin Zhivago on May 18, 2007
A group of consultants are in a conference room, pitching a new client. One of the consultants is making the pitch. We'll call him the salesperson.
So far, the client has been alert, sitting up straight, listening, eyes fixed on the presentation being displayed in the conference room. Then the salesperson says something that disturbs the client, and the client shifts in his chair. His brows furrow a little. His eyes are no longer open wide, but squinting slightly. His hand comes up to the front of his face, palm on his chin, fingers over his lips.
The client has just sent a signal to the presenter. It is an unmistakable signal, if the presenter is properly attuned to body language. The signal says, "Hmmm. Wait a minute. This doesn't sit well with me."
This is a test, and most salespeople flunk it. It is the beginning of a downward spiral that will end in a sale.
Instead of reacting properly to the signal, the salesperson just keeps talking. He may even pick up on the body language, but doesn't know what to do about it. He does the exact opposite of what he should do. He becomes more forceful. He talks louder and faster.
In a matter of seconds, the client will come to a couple of negative conclusions about this salesperson.
First, the salesperson didn't observe and respect the subtle but unmistakable signals coming from the client. This tells the client that the salesperson will not be sensitive to the client's needs. It also tells the client that this salesperson will not sell successfully to the client's managers, who will send even more subtle signals when they are being pitched. The client will decide he can't take this salesperson in to sell his bosses.
Second, the client will notice that the salesperson is speaking even more forcefully than before. This will tell the client that the salesperson did, in fact, notice the change in body language, but decided - consciously or subconsciously - to stick to his agenda, and to push harder. To impose his will on the client, in other words. Now the salesperson is really in trouble. No one likes being pushed around.
As the salesperson continues to talk, the client will make a mental or written note about his concern. He will also shift into "what else is wrong with this guy" mode. Since he has already decided that the salesperson won't meet his personal needs, and won't sell successfully to his managers, he will start to build a case in his mind for rejecting this salesperson and his company's services. All the salesperson has to do is make a few more mistakes, and the client will shut the door entirely.
The salesperson won't be given another chance, either. His own behavior will cause him to lose the sale and his chances to sell anything to this client in the future.
What would a good salesperson have done in this situation? The second that client's brow furrowed, the salesperson would notice it and think, "Oh, oh, something's wrong." He would stop dead. He would look the client in the eye, and say (without rancor), "How are we doing so far? Any questions?"
The client will have a completely different reaction. First, he will be glad that the salesperson noted his concern, and will think, "Good. This guy can read subtle signals. We'll need that when I have him pitch my bosses." Second, he will actually tell the salesperson what was bothering him, rewarding the salesperson's observation and courtesy by giving the salesperson a chance to address that concern.
The good salesperson will successfully address the concern, then check with the client again before proceeding. "Does that answer your question? Or is there something else I should address?" Of course, the salesperson doesn't ask these questions with his hand on his hip; he is respectful. He really does want to make sure the client's mind is clear again, ready to accept more of the sales pitch.
As the pitch proceeds, if the salesperson stops whenever the client signals concern or doubt, progress toward the sale will flow smoothly from start to close. The client will remain in an open, and accepting state. At the end of the pitch, the client will reward the salesperson's attentiveness with that wonderful "let's talk about where we go from here" discussion.
In other words, the salesperson will make the sale.
By Kristin Zhivago on Jun 15, 2007
The perfect sales manager is rare. One person seldom has all of the right traits, and seldom behaves consistently in the most effective manner. My goal here is to describe the ideal. If you are recruiting, you'll want to get as close to this ideal as you can, then work with the individual to improve their deficiencies. If you are still managing your own sales force yourself, you will be well-served if you develop and exercise these characteristics.
Before we get into the details, we should note that most salespeople make terrible managers, unless they are so mature that they have overcome their tendencies toward attention-deficit disorder and shifting loyalties. Most salespeople skim through life, from one conversation to the next, and have no patience for the deep thinking that is required of a perfect sales manager.
The most common mistake made by company owners and managers is to promote a salesperson to management - and expect them to shine. In most cases, over-promoted salespeople do a great job of selling their bosses on their success - even as the sales force they are managing starts to falter, then fail. They are usually fired or leave before the situation is irreparable - in most industries, this happens in a little less than two years. Then another salesperson is promoted to the sales management position, and the cycle starts all over again.
Here are the characteristics and behaviors of a perfect sales manager.
It is important that salespeople feel that their sales manager is their best friend in the world, someone who can help them resolve any issue and who can provide the tools and knowledge they need to continually improve their results.
The perfect sales manager, however, is never loyal to salespeople at the expense of his loyalty to the company - or the customer.
In other words, he never complains about management to his salespeople. He should listen to their complaints (and they will always have complaints, because selling is tough), and then say, "Yes, I can see where that would be a problem. Let me talk to the boss and see what we can do." After his discussion with his boss, he will take the resulting decision back to the salespeople, explain why that decision was made, and then help them to embrace the decision.
He should always be the first and best advocate for what the customer really wants. He can only do that if he spends enough time interviewing customers that he understands what their needs and perceptions are, and can then communicate those needs and perceptions to the sales force. His familiarity with the customer will also help him represent that customer to management, to make sure that managers are making customer-pleasing decisions.
One of the reasons salespeople typically make such bad sales managers is because most salespeople have a "me against the world" attitude. It's actually more than an attitude; it's the force that gets them up in the morning, and sustains them when the going gets tough. This attitude runs deep. It's one of those major behavioral characteristics that is difficult to change. When a "me against the world" person is made into a manager, he will compete with and complain about everyone to everyone. He will foster an environment of conflict instead of an environment of cooperation. And that is the last thing you want, because resolution is the key ingredient of success in selling and in management.
Salespeople work in an environment that changes by the minute. Because the consumer is actually controlling the selling process (by virtue of being in charge of the buying process), the salesperson's challenges can shift, and their anticipated successes can disappear, in the blink of an eye. In addition, they are held accountable for every sale they lose. This is a highly unstable environment.
To help them navigate this environment, and to help them handle the highs and lows wisely, the perfect sales manager provides a consistent and predictable environment for his sales force. They know what management expects. They know what the rules are. They know how they are performing, every day. They know what they should be focusing on. They know which behaviors are completely unacceptable and grounds for dismissal.
The perfect sales manager may be working for an inconsistent boss. This presents problems for the sales manager, who will attack this problem on two fronts. He will help his boss be more consistent, and then he will present management preferences and decisions in a way that makes it easy for his sales force to accept them. He will resolve each issue with his boss, and then convey the resolution to the sales force.
By Kristin Zhivago on Jun 22, 2007
Last week we discussed two of the traits of the perfect sales manager: loyalty (first to the customer, then the company, then the sales force), and consistency. This week we will look at the remaining key characteristics. The perfect sales manager is also empathetic, process-oriented and behaves both as a mother hen and a whip-cracker.
Note that I said empathetic, not sympathetic. When you empathize with someone, you listen carefully and understand their problem, but you retain your ability to make decisions that are not driven by their emotions.
The perfect sales manager does not get emotionally involved in the struggles of his salespeople. He listens, he understands, and he takes action, but he does not let any salesperson convince him that he should favor one salesperson over another or that he should let a salesperson's complaints override his loyalty to the company or the customer.
The perfect sales manager will have sold at some point in his career, preferably on a straight-commission basis. He must know what it feels like to be completely dependent on commission. He must know what it feels like to live with the worry that the basic necessities of life will not be taken care of unless he can make that big sale. He must know what it feels like to lose a big sale. Only someone who has gone through this can understand the fear that the commission-driven salesperson lives with every day.
Now we are really asking water to flow uphill. Most salespeople are just not process-oriented. The less they have to think about or participate in processes, the better. They hate paperwork. They hate having to document their conversations and activities.
The perfect sales manager knows this, and focuses at least 50% of his daily efforts on improving the selling process. As I mentioned earlier, the customer controls the selling process, because the customer is in charge of the buying process. This is a tough reality for any salesperson to admit - most believe it is their personal brilliance that closes every sale.
Now that we are operating in the age of the Web, consumers have instant access to product and company information. In many cases, they follow their own buying process, and can be very far down that road before they contact a sales rep. That sales rep is then expected to answer very specific - and crucial - questions. By the time the customer calls a sales rep, the customer is in a go/no go state of mind. There are just a couple of issues left that will make or break the sale. The sales rep must be able to ascertain where the customer is in his buying process - customers have very little patience for anything less - and answer these questions to the buyer's satisfaction.
The perfect sales manager makes sure that the sales rep can answer those go/no go questions immediately and satisfactorily. We're talking about fingertip access to any answer that the customer seeks. This requires a constant discovery process, to determine the questions customers ask, and diligent attention paid to the informational systems that provide the right answers at the right time in the customer's buying process.
The perfect sales manager deftly combines two opposite personality traits. He is both a mother hen and a whip-cracker.
As the mother hen, he is there whenever they have a problem. He helps to resolve it, either with the customer or with management. He helps the salesperson learn from the experience, so the salesperson can solve that problem without help in the future. He makes sure his salespeople get the training they need. He fights for fair and incentivizing compensation.
As the whip-cracker, he knows exactly what the salespeople are doing at all times. He meets with them every morning and talks with each person about their performance - in a group meeting. The results of each rep are displayed where anyone can see them, either on a bulletin board or white board in the sales area, or virtually as a computer "dashboard" that anyone in the company can view at any time.
Public recognition and embarrassment is a key factor in the successful management of a sales force (without being cruel, of course). Nothing is hidden. If someone is not doing well, the perfect sales manager will give that person every opportunity to turn the situation around. He will accurately assess the person's weaknesses and work with the person until new behaviors are learned and internalized.
He will also use the best performers as examples, and will not micro-manage them. This is important. You should never manage your under-performers the same way you manage your high-performers, and you should manage the middle-of-the-road performers differently than your low and high performers.
Each group requires a different amount of attention. The lowest performers need a lot of training and specific instruction; the middle performers need to be reminded of their weaknesses and to be given tools to improve them; and the highest performers need to be heard when something makes their job more tedious or cumbersome. Changes should be made to accommodate them, in a way that also helps the company and the customer.
What is the career path followed by a perfect sales manager? Someone who has sold for many years, but who shifted into a more operational role later in their career can become a perfect sales manager. The person should still have fire in his belly, but it should be a smoldering fire that can be stoked up or damped down, as the situation demands.
By Kristin Zhivago on Jul 6, 2007
There's a certain type of entrepreneur who becomes obsessed with a product idea, and sets up a business to sell it. It's always a guy (yes, for some reason, it's always a guy) who can never understand why "everyone can't see the wisdom of this idea" and why "someone can't give me the money to get this business off the ground."
I hear from these gentlemen because of my blog and book, and my consulting company. The most recent person who contacted me said he had also contacted a famous "marketing guru" company, but that "they won't give me the time of day."
This most recent person says that he lost a great deal of money trying to sell websites for a website creation franchise operation. He is now in debt, and is trying to get out of debt selling a gasoline additive. He tells me that he wants marketing help. But when I make specific suggestions, he responds to my email with more detail about how he got into debt and how he is a nice person who was raised to treat people with respect and courtesy, and how he just needs marketing help. In other words, he asks for advice, advice is given, and then he ignores it and asks for advice or sympathy.
I'm sure he is a nice person. But I'm also sure that I can't help him because he refuses to engage in a process that would lead to success. He is looking for some kind of magic bullet that will make everything turn out all right.
Another similar entrepreneur has created a product, mortgaged his house to have them produced in quantity, and is now sending out emails begging for someone to finance the marketing for him.
In these situations, there is a certain lack of reality. The marketplace is merciless to people who refuse to face reality. There is also always a blatant attempt at garnering sympathy. We are told the long sad story. But customers never, ever buy out of sympathy. People may give money or assistance to someone down on their luck, but that's not a purchase. Purchases are made when the buyer has confidence in the seller, not when the buyer feels sorry for the seller.
I'm sorry to say that I don't have much hope for these entrepreneurs. Because of their own behavior, they are destined to scrape along.
There's an entirely different kind of entrepreneur who also needs help, but is open to advice. This type of person engages and thinks along with the person giving advice. For example, I was contacted several months ago by a woman who needed help with her product line and her website. We've been working together for several months now, and have made steady progress. She doesn't have her head in the sand. She's willing to do the hard work that is required to be successful.
There are no appeals for sympathy, although she had been having a tough time with her business until she found us. She had been misguided many times by search engine, website, and marketing vendors who made self-serving, expensive and ineffective suggestions.
What's the fundamental difference? I think it's a victim versus victor mentality.
The victim assumes that no matter what he does, he is somehow destined to fail. It's a pattern, one that he is familiar with, one that he will most likely repeat. (This is why I never recommend hiring someone who has worked for more than one failing company - they often learn how to fail rather than succeed.)
The victor assumes there must be a way to succeed, and is realistic about the fact that success takes a huge amount of hard work. The victor is also willing to step out of the usual comfort zones when the advice being given makes sense.
Even habitual victors have some victim mentality in them. Is there something you always assume you will not do well? Something that tends to fail? Something that has never worked for you in the past? Something that seems too difficult, so you basically ignore it? Something that you assume you can't do yourself, and are always looking for someone else to save you?
When you work for a boss, you can whine about how difficult something is to your boss. A good boss will listen and try to help you find a solution. When you're an entrepreneur (or the boss), you can't whine to anyone. No one is interested in your sad story - least of all potential customers. You have to find a way to fix it. You have to learn your way out.
By Kristin Zhivago on Aug 3, 2007
Let's say you're a vendor in a developing country selling some kind of product or service to customers in more developed countries. You know you can provide what the customers there need, but you're not sure how get the attention of the right kinds of buyers, and when you do get a lead, you find it too difficult to close the sale. Something is standing in your way. That something is the negative reputation that your country or industry has in the mind of the buyer.
This article will address both of these challenges while looking at the process from the buyer's perspective. The advice in this article will help anyone selling any type of high-risk product or service - even in well-established markets - as the dynamics are similar.
Getting leads
It's easiest to cover this subject by using a fictitious but true-to-life example. Let's say Rashid has a group of programmers who specialize in building marine satellite systems for yacht owners. If he follows the path taken by many others like him, he will either take a shotgun approach aimed at the end consumer, or pursue a "please sell this for me" approach with a distributor in the business.
The shotgun approach - trying to reach the end consumer with ads and other broad marketing vehicles - fails because a high-end customer is not going to hire someone overseas from an ad, and there are many local vendors who already sell the same thing. Only a very highly recommended vendor will succeed in those situations.
Established distributors are seldom interested in repping a developing-country supplier, because they have plenty of local vendors already knocking on their door, and they want to make easy sales, not sales where they have to convince someone that the vendor is trustworthy even though he is 6,000 miles away.
Developing country vendors work in a smaller neighborhood than their developed country counterparts. It is difficult for them to conceive how saturated and competitive the industries are in developed countries. Over the years, when developing country vendors approach me for advice about selling in America, they were always surprised at how ineffective their marketing efforts are projected to be (or have already been). They have this image of millions of Americans just waiting for their solution. Even the Amercan vendors have trouble getting the attention of buyers, much less those whose location (or industry) raises red flags.
The solution is to figure out, through a series of investigative phone calls, who already has an "in" with the desired buyers, and contact those people. Ask them what they look for in a vendor, what they think people will be concerned about, and what could be done to make it easy for the person to recommend the foreign company.
For example, custom yacht designers cater to wealthy clients who want to stay in touch with their businesses while at sea. They need communication systems. Yacht designers, and the builders who build their yachts, need subcontractors who can design and install the right system for the customer's requirements. These designers and builders are the right kinds of people to contact and interview. They have an appropriate existing client base and a personal need for a reliable vendor.
During the interview, the yacht designer will ask questions about what you sell, how you provide your services, and how much you charge. The designer, without being pressured to do so, will consider you as a vendor for his own clients as he is being interviewed. At the end of the call, he will ask you to send him some information (or will ask for your website address).
Keep in touch with these contacts over time, and leads will start coming in from these sources. Best of all, they will be "hot" leads, not "cold" or even "warm" leads. You will have been recommended. Make sure the client is happy, and you will get more leads from client referrals and that designer, who will be happy that he has found a vendor he can trust.
Closing sales
When a buyer is spending a lot of hard-earned money on something that could easily turn out badly, he will have a specific set of concerns that must be addressed before the sale can proceed.
Sellers seldom address these concerns head-on. Instead, they sell as if these concerns don't exist - either because they don't recognize that these concerns are "show stoppers," or because they incorrectly assume that foreign buyers will have the same concerns as local buyers. If you've ever been the international buyer in one of these situations, you know how far this perception is from the reality.
Before the buyer starts doing business with someone in a developing country, he does some research. He Googles phrases such as "outsourcing China problems" or "India call centers lawsuits." He starts asking around until he finds people who have purchased similar products and services in the same countries. He calls them. He hears all their horror stories. If they are negative, they will be emphatically negative, because they want to do what they can to help others avoid the problems they had. They are glad to tell their tale to a concerned caller. And, it always feels good to be an expert on a call.
The really sad situations, where someone has lost a lot of money and had their dreams shattered, tend to have a long life cycle. These stories become a country's "brand" - the promises that the country keeps, in the minds of prospective buyers.
By the time the buyer meets with the seller, this brand has been firmly established by credible sources. Any seller who thinks he can waltz in and sell a buyer, without first addressing this suspicion and expectation of disaster, is living in a fantasy world.
As I have discussed in previous articles, these concerns are not "objections that must be countered." It's insulting to the buyer to treat buyer concerns this way. The buyer has a valid concern, which must be proactively and courteously addressed.
Rather than ignore the issue, or try to talk the buyer out of carefully gathered perceptions from credible sources, the seller should make it his business to know what the concerns are, and to prove that he is not like all those other vendors in the horror stories.
Fortunately for sellers, buyers are always hoping that they will find an exception to the rule - after all, buyers are buyers because they are hoping to buy. Americans, in particular, are eager to believe that a vendor has seen the error of his countrymens' ways, and is offering an alternative that will protect the buyer from experiences he will regret.
Does the country or industry have a reputation for dishonesty? The vendor should go out of his way to be totally transparent about all of the finances and reporting systems, including quality of work and progress of work. The vendor should have systems already created that the buyer can examine at any time, and should be able to show the buyer those systems early in the buying process.
Does the country have political, cultural or societal differences that will make things difficult for the buyer? For example, maybe the people drive on "the 'wrong' side of the road," and all the street signs are in a different language. In these cases, a visiting buyer should be met at the airport. Either a driver should be assigned to the customer, the customer should be driven around by the seller, or the customer should be given another easy way to get around during his or her stay.
Does the country have a reputation for endless bureaucracy? The seller should offer the buyer a "kit" that includes all the forms needed to do business in the country, and contacts at local organizations such as banks and insurance companies.
A certain amount of trust must be established before the buyer will even consider the actual product or service being sold by a developing country vendor or by a vendor in an industry that has a negative reputation. The only way to establish this trust is to provide the buyer with his own personal, positive experience. Only positive personal experience can overcome the negative reputation. If you proactively prove that you are trustworthy, that you have anticipated the buyer's needs and are successfully meeting them, you will be considered a vendor who is "a cut above," and separate yourself from your competition - and that negative reputation.
Then the buyer will choose you as a vendor, and think to himself, "Well, all those other buyers had problems, but this is going really well. Perhaps they weren't as careful or smart as I have been." You will be associated with a personal victory in the buyer's mind - even before you start selling your product or service.
As the selling/buying process progresses, make sure you answer all of the other questions the buyer has, honestly and thoroughly. Chances will be very, very good that you will make the sale.
By Kristin Zhivago on Aug 10, 2007
Every business starts with a dream. Every buyer starts the buying process with a dream.
Every business can turn into a nightmare. And, every buying process - especially those involving large, expensive, important purchases - can turn into a nightmare.
These dreams - and fears of nightmares - drive the decisions and actions of both business owners and buyers.
We've all seen this at work in extreme cases, where an individual will let their own fantasy world overwhelm reality to the point where they lose their job or their business, and the people who supported them along the way.
But these situations are rare. The more usual, day-to-day situation is one where the seller and buyer are trying to find common ground, to negotiate a realistic solution where everyone can be happy. These situations can be difficult - not because each person is being unrealistic, but because the seller's dreams and nightmares are so different from the buyer's dreams and nightmares.
For example, someone selling a house has definite dreams and needs underlying their decision to sell. They need to receive a certain price in order to be able to pursue their next dream. They need to sell by a certain time in order to satisfy the requirements of the seller of their new house. They need a buyer who is willing to meet these requirements.
They also have put a certain amount of effort into making their house "sellable." They are hoping that the new buyer will look past the unfixed things which were too expensive or too complicated to fix. They are hoping that the new buyer will see his or her dream, and will be willing to overlook things like that crack in the foundation that has been there since the seller bought the house years ago. These are the seller's hopes and dreams.
What are the seller's nightmares? Not being able to sell the house. Not being able to sell the house for enough money to afford the next house. Obligating to the new house before the old house has closed, and then the old house deal falls through. Somehow being defrauded by the salesperson (although the laws - in most countries, anyway - make this virtually impossible).
What are the buyer's dreams? The buyer wants to find the perfect house, one where everyone in the family will be happy. The price has to be affordable, in balance with the amount of money the person makes and how much it will cost to fix any real or perceived shortcomings. The buyer wants the buying process to proceed smoothly, in spite of all the complications involved in buying a house, including real estate agents who have perfected the art of telling incomplete truths, and dense, scary legal documents.
The buyer, when visiting the house, "tries it on," imagining how her dreams will be realized in that house. The buyer sees herself sitting on the porch enjoying the view, glass of wine in hand, having friends over, and watching her children play in the yard. She imagines what she will do with the gardens and how she will remodel the kitchen. She imagines her children asleep upstairs while she and her husband are snuggled in bed watching a favorite movie. She imagines coming home from work to this house. She imagines her friends admiring the house.
The buyer is also driven by her own nightmares. She doesn't want to buy something she will come to regret, something that has problems that were not immediately apparent, such as a tainted mortgage, taxes due, a leaky underground oil tank, a septic system that must be completely overhauled in a couple of years, a crack in the foundation that was concealed by a well-placed piece of furniture in the basement, or a contaminated well. The list of "gotchas" is endless, and she knows it.
Obviously, what the buyer wants and what the seller wants are miles apart - except for one, solitary thing: a completed deal. If the buyer falls in love with the house, investigates it thoroughly to eliminate the possibility of future nightmares, she will then want to move to complete the deal. The seller wants a completed deal from the start, even before the house has been put on the market.
As with any complex sale, the buyer is not acting alone. Sellers have to determine who else is involved in the buying decision, and know what their anticipated nightmares are.
Sellers have to be prepared - in advance - to address the nightmare scenarios of the potential buyer, others involved in the buying decision, and the buyer's hired experts.
Worried about a tainted mortgage? No problem, here are the town records on this house. Worried about leakage somewhere? No problem, we had an assessor go through - even though we know you will do the same - and here is his report. Worried about that buried oil tank leaking? No problem, we had it removed last year and replaced it with an above-ground oil tank - and had the ground tested around the old oil tank. Here's the report. Worried about cracks in the foundation? Here, look at the basement. There are no pieces of furntiture, or carpeting, or "mechanicals" hiding the foundation. Worried about a tainted well? Here is a report from last year on the water quality in our well. Of course you will want the water tested yourself.
The difficulties arise when there really is a problem with the house, and the seller decides not to disclose it. The seller "lets the buyer be stupid." If the buyer doesn't bring it up, the seller doesn't mention it. This is when the nightmares are justified, when they begin to become a reality, a reality the new owner will have to face when the problem is discovered later.
These are the dream/nightmare dynamics that drive every sale - and every purchase.
What is really important to note here is that the seller of a house, once the deal is signed, is protected from the buyer's wrath if the buyer discovers later that the seller "let the buyer be stupid." The contract is signed. The seller is long gone. That seller will not be selling that buyer another house. That buyer is not going to be talking to other buyers about that seller. This is NOT the case with many other types of sales.
If you're selling software, for example, and you "let the buyer be stupid," you will have difficulty making sales in the long run. When a buyer realizes, after the sale, that you misrepresented the facts, that buyer will make sure everyone knows exactly what you did. That buyer will tell everyone who is interested that you are not to be trusted, and that they should avoid doing business with you. A negative wave will be created that will overwhelm your efforts to create positive momentum in the marketplace. You will never gain the traction that makes sales easier over time. On the contrary, sales will become more and more difficult.
If you're struggling to make sales, it's time to make a list of all the nightmares your buyers are afraid of. Honestly assess how your product stacks up against the nightmare list. Are some of their nightmares justified? Are you trying to hide your product's flaws or rationalize them away with well-rehearsed answers to their questions? If so, you are running away from a reality that is ultimately going to destroy your business. That would be a real nightmare. Face reality and make changes to your product.
If their nightmares are not justified, and you really do have their dream product, then it's time to make it easier for them to discover that. For example, maybe they're worried that they can't generate a particular type of report. Create a map of reports for them, a "tree directory," that shows all the reports your product can generate and exactly how they can navigate to those reports, using your product's menus.
There are two cures for nightmares: factual reality - as in, "there are no cracks in the foundation," and communication - as in, "here's the proof."
By Kristin Zhivago on Aug 24, 2007
The phone rings. I answer it, the way I always answer it: "This is Kristin Zhivago. Can I help you?"
There is a bit of silence, then suddenly the line is alive with the sounds of a busy telemarketing boiler room. Many voices can be heard in the background, pleading, sympathizing, pushing, lying. I know exactly what is going to happen next. But, because I am a professional revenue coach, dedicated to improving how people sell their products and services, I stay on the line. The person on the other end has a very thick Indian accent. So we know who is calling and where they're calling from.
"Hello, I'd like to speak to...um...Mrs. Cheerago."
Sigh. "This is Kristin Zhivago," I say again. "What can I do for you?"
"Well, Mrs. Cheerago, this is John McDougal. I'm not calling to sell you anything."
Let's hit the pause button on this oh-so-typical and oh-so-insulting conversation to note a couple of things.
First, there's the problem of having the telemarketer come on the line after the person has said hello, but without the telemarketer knowing how the person said hello. I have already identified myself, but "John McDougal" doesn't know that, so he asks for me.
Second, the salesperson has started out our call with a two bold-faced lies. I am pretty sure that "John McDougal" is not a common name in India, and that this person - whatever his name really is - is using the name "John McDougal" to soften me up: Perhaps this person, with a thick accent, sitting in a boiler room in India, is really calling from a boiler room in Ireland! There. I feel so much better now.
Sometimes I try to imagine how stupid they really think people are. I mean, what if I were as stupid as they were hoping? "Oh, John! So nice to hear from you, and I'm so glad you aren't selling me anything today, because I really hate getting telemarketing calls from people in boiler rooms in far away places trying to take my money. And I'm so glad your name is John McDougal, because I'm much more comfortable talking to someone in Ireland than someone in India."
Honestly, I don't think there are any people this stupid in the world. People who society classifies as "stupid" - people who are mentally retarded, in other words, are smarter than this. Because of my autistic brother, I've known a number of such folks. I can easily imagine someone with Down's syndrome saying, "Ah, I know you are lying, John! You can't fool me! You're in India, and your name isn't John McDougal. Ha! Thought you'd fool me! Ha!"
My sentiments exactly. So I say:
"Well! Good morning to you, John. I do have a question for you. If you're not calling to sell me anything, why did you call? Just to say hello? Have we met before? Do I know you?"
John forces a little laugh. He's probably swearing in his mind, worried that this call will be unpleasant, but he presses on. Gotta get those rupees for that coveted iPhone.
"No, no, Mrs. Cheerago. My name is John McDougal. I am not calling to sell you anything today."
This is a common technique. The customer didn't believe the lie the first time, so we stick to the script and we tell the lie again. Does repetition make lies more believable? Politicians seem to think so.
"Yes, I heard that the first time you said it, John. I was listening to you. So what are you calling about today?"
"Well, I wondered, Mrs. Cheerago, who you are using for your website hosting services?"
"I am very happy with the company I'm using, thanks, and I don't really feel the need to tell you who I'm using, because then you'd try to talk me out of using them, and I don't feel like being talked out of using them right now."
John forces another little laugh. He must practice doing this in front of the mirror each day. "Well, Mrs. Cheerago," he says, totally unaware of how irritating it is for someone to keep mispronouncing your name, especially after you have pronounced it correctly for them, enunciating it clearly. "I understand why you might say that."
Another grating approach.
Do they think we are so starved for sympathy in our lives that we will take any sympathy we can get? That we are, literally, desperate for sympathy, and are just sitting by the phone, waiting for someone to call us and talk about our website hosting company, and sympathize about the problems we've had with them? Puh-leeeeeeze.
"John" continues: "We have talked to many customers who are not getting the service they deserve, and they are paying too much. We have a service that only costs $9.95 a month, for example, and you can switch over to our service in a matter of minutes."
"Whoa! John! I thought you weren't calling to sell me anything! This sounds suspiciously like selling to me. You weren't lying about not calling to sell me anything, were you?"
"John" doesn't laugh this time. "John" is starting to get irritated.
"No, no, Mrs. Cheerago, I am not lying to you! I am just wondering how you feel about your current website provider."
Usually by this time, I know I've learned all I can learn from this phone call, and certainly have enough to write an article. It's time to say goodbye to my new Irish friend in India. I'm afraid I'm not going to help him earn that iPhone. But sometimes I end up giving these paid liars some advice.
"John, I know where this call is going. I've been selling for years. You did call to sell me, and I don't do business with people who lie. So you're not going to be able to get any business from me today. But, you sound like a smart guy. You might want to think about doing something more meaningful with your life. I'm sure you could find a way to help people and get paid for it. You're too smart for this kind of work."
I can hear his eyebrows going up. He laughs this time, for real. For a very brief moment, he stops lying. "Thank you for saying that," he says, and then remembers that the call is being taped. "Um, well..."
His script is failing him now. The script is set up for the usual protests. No where does it say what to do when the person you called just told you that you're too smart for your job and you ought to think about doing something more meaningful with your life. But, rupees are rupees, so "John" tries one more time.
"Mrs. Cheerago, have you ever thought about switching website vendors?"
"OK, John, I have to go back to work. I'm not going to change website vendors. Actually, I'd like you to take me off your list. You are obligated by law to do so when I ask this, OK?"
"But Mrs. Cheerago, I'm not calling to sell you anything, you can try our hosting service for free!"
"John, really, you are legally obligated to take me off your list. And I'm going to hang up on you now, even if you keep insisting on talking, OK?"
"John" does try to keep talking, but I really must get back to more meaningful work.
As my hand reaches for the disconnect button, I say, "Thank you, John, have a nice day, think about what I said, I'm hanging up now."
Click.
What has happened here? A website hosting company has hired a telemarketing company in India to call up and lie to their prospects, and to ignore them when they say "No, thanks," and to refuse to take them off their list, and to treat them like they are complete idiots.
This is not selling. This is paying people to lie to and insult your potential customers. This is building a scum brand, one call at a time.
By Kristin Zhivago on Sep 21, 2007
There are two kinds of salespeople in the world. One knows that the customer is just trying to get some questions answered, and does what he can to answer those questions. The other sees the customer's questions as "objections" to be overcome - obstacles to his making the sale and getting a commission.
In other words, in the first case, the customer is right - right to be making sure the product will meet his needs. Right to ask questions. Rightfully entitled to getting honest answers to those questions until he has enough information to make a good decision.
In the second case, the salesperson behaves as if the customer is just plain wrong. During the conversation with the customer he is, by turns, evasive, dismissive, and downright rude as he spits out answers. He is combative during the question-asking process. He interrupts the customer, argues with the customer, and treats the customer like an idiot.
A recent experience with such a salesperson convinced me that these salespeople end up in sales because they love to argue but they're not smart enough (or industrious enough) to get through law school. They are wanna-be lawyers.
Meet Mr. Overcome Their Objections
My husband and I were at a tradeshow recently - the Newport Boat Show. We were comparing boat instrumentation systems made by two different manufacturers, B&G and NKE. We went to the B&G booth first.
The salesperson came up and started to "help" us. No matter which question he asked, his basic mantra was, "You're wrong. Let me tell you how it really is."
Here are the mistakes the salesperson made. He was a perfect example of the "you're wrong, I'm right," approach.
1) He didn't bother to figure out who we were, what we knew, or where we were in our buying process. My husband and I have spent years understanding, buying, using, trouble-shooting, and repairing electronic devices. More than once, the salesperson spoke to us as if we couldn't change the batteries in a flashlight.If he had asked a simple question or two, he could have pegged us, and avoided the "digital for dummies" lecture. Ditto for things like the difference between "true wind" direction (the direction the wind is coming from) and "apparent wind" direction (the direction the wind appears to be coming from when you add the wind generated by the boat's directional progress to the true wind). Several times, in order to get the real answer to our real question, we had to make it clear that we didn't need a lecture on the basics; we just needed a specific question answered.
2) He said things that were ridiculous, and didn't laugh when we all realized they were ridiculous. As we stood in the booth, we were trying to compare two different B&G systems. One of them was about twice the price of the other. It became obvious, based on what he was telling us, that the higher-priced system was higher-priced because the company believed that someone paying more for a boat would also automatically want to pay more for a navigational system, even though the lower-priced system would do the price equally well, and the underlying electronics were the same. The price of the system was set by the thickness of your wallet, in other words. He refused to acknowledge the absurdity of it. A good salesperson would have chuckled, at least.
3) He became increasingly irritated about specific questions. At one point in the increasingly uncomfortable discussion, he said that the wind direction sensor had to be reset each time the boat was tacked (each time you changed direction as you were going up towards the wind). This was disturbing, because you don't want to have to reset your instruments while you're busy dealing with tacking every few minutes in a narrow channel.
I asked him about it, but he kept interrupting me before I could finish asking my question. "I know, I know, I know what you are saying," he said. So, I said, "OK, if you know what I'm saying, go ahead and answer the question." His answer was one of those non-answers that salespeople give when they really don't want you to know the real answer, or they don't know the answer themselves and start resorting to SBS (salesperson BS). What he should have said is you only have to calibrate the instrument one time to account for the specifics of your boat, and after that you can rely on the numbers the instrument is displaying, because it resets automatically with each tack.
4) As he was talking to me, he was unselling my husband. This happens frequently when two people are talking to a salesperson. As my husband watched this guy operate, he was thinking: The B&G system and the NKE system are basically comparable. The basics are covered by both systems; most of these systems suffer from feature bloat anyway. They all do the job and are fairly reasonable to use. What really makes the difference is what happens when something goes wrong - and something always goes wrong with electronics sooner or later - and you have to deal with the company's people. This guy is probably the US importer for B&G, and he's being a jerk. I've already talked to the importer for NKE, and he's a pretty reasonable guy.
So while the salesperson thought he was "winning the argument," and "overcoming her objections," the other customer watching it all decided that when we were somewhere far from home, and something went wrong, he wanted to deal with a company that said, "No problem, it's probably just the [whatever], and we'll ship it out to you today," instead of the company that said, "You'll have to ship the whole unit back to us and we'll see what's wrong with it, and you'll have to pay for shipping in and out, it will probably take about 6 weeks." Or, worse, "You're wrong. Those units never have that kind of failure. Are you sure it's plugged in?"
Argumentative salespeople behave as if they are the smartest guy, selling to someone stupid. Innate intelligence aside, the argumentative salesperson is missing the whole point. Today's customers can spend literally hours researching a product before they ever talk to a salesperson, becoming quite knowledgeable about a product. By the time they do talk to a salesperson, they know quite a bit about it, often even more than the salesperson - and they have very specific questions.
Marketing and sales should be working together to answer those questions. Salespeople should be taught that the customer's questions and concerns are valid and deserve a complete and accurate answer.
The customer knows what he knows. He is almost ready to buy, and only has a few questions. Too bad the I-wanna-be-an-attorney salespeople are determined to argue, even at this late stage in the buying process.
When we visited the NKE booth, we had a very pleasant experience there. The salesperson was gracious and helpful, speaking as one veteran sailor to another. He listened. He understood who we were and where we are in our buying process, with just a couple of questions. If he didn't know about something, he said so, and we looked up the answer in the detailed literature in the booth. He answered all our questions. He treated us as if we were trying to make an intelligent decision, and he helped us make that decision.
There is no doubt in our minds which vendor's system is going to end up on our boat.
The customer is always right about one thing: He has the right to take his money elsewhere. And, given "you're wrong" treatment, he probably will.
By Kristin Zhivago on Oct 12, 2007
Imagine that you are going to have a house constructed, and while it is under construction, you want to insure the construction site. Your contractor refers you to an insurance salesperson he knows. You meet with the person, you like him, and you proceed to give him the information he needs to proceed with a quote.
As the weeks go by, however, you decide that you aren't going to do business with that insurance broker. Why? Because he just wasn't working hard for the sale. He was friendly, but not professional. It takes too long for him to respond to requests. The information he provides doesn't match your situation nor answer your specific questions.
You end up finding another broker, who responds quickly, thoroughly, professionally to every question you ask him. You end up telling the contractor that you appreciate the referral to his insurance buddy, but that you will be using a different insurance broker.
What really happened here is the referred salesperson was assuming, from the start, that he had the sale in the bag. He wasn't very concerned about the relationship with the customer, because he assumed that the customer was already on board.
But customers are NEVER trapped on board, chained to the deck. In fact, they own the boat (their buying process), they're driving the boat, you're simply a guest on the boat, and they can toss you overboard at any time. Fail to give them what they need, and they will do just that. As you are bobbing in their wake, you'll watch your competitor step on board. The buyer and the competitor will sail away together, leaving you treading water, wondering what you did wrong.
The dangerous myth
Salespeople operate all day, every day, under the mistaken impression that they are driving the sale. Hundreds of books and training courses feed this myth, and salespeople snap them up eagerly. There's nothing easier than convincing a salesperson that he is the lead dog controlling the selling process. Why are they so glad to buy into this myth? Because selling is one of the toughest professions in the world. Every day is filled with rejection. Any fantasy that says "you're in power" is a welcome relief from the day-to-day reality.
Salespeople not only try to convince themselves they're in control, they also try to convince their bosses. Their favorite expression is, "No problem."
"That sale is in the bag, boss," the salesman will say, in the weekly sales meeting. When the sale is lost later, the salesperson finds some useful excuse (there are a million of them, and salespeople are expert at making even the oldest, most tired excuses sound plausible). The salesperson quickly changes the subject to the next sale, which is even bigger and more exciting. The boss gets excited, too, and the bungled sale is forgotten.
When a salesperson gets a "referral lead," the salesperson usually jumps on it. He knows it is low-hanging fruit. The credibility barrier has already been broken; the customer is likely to trust him because the customer has been referred to the salesperson by someone they trust.
What the salesperson doesn't understand is that the customer's skepticism, which drives every buying decision, is just as active in this situation as it is with a non-referred sale. The only difference is that the research process has been shortened.
In other words, if the buying process were a romantic movie, the salesperson is already basking in the glow of the happy ending. He is imagining himself closing the sale. The customer, on the other hand, is still in the beginning of the movie, where the two main characters have disappointed each other and their future together looks very bleak - even impossible.
Why the big difference? Why is the customer so skeptical? Because the customer has been burned before.
Today's customers buy hundreds of items a month. They make those purchases based on what vendors promise. Many of those promises have been broken. Customers remember those disappointments. That outfit looked fantastic on the size 4 model, but not good at all on the size 12 woman. That earbud mic for a cell phone was promised to be just right for a Razr V3 phone, but when it's plugged in, it simply doesn't work. That vendor who promised to be there "Saturday" doesn't show up on Saturday, or Monday, or Wednesday, and has still not shown up two weeks later. That insurance company that promised to take care of its customers is now balking at providing coverage. The bank that prides itself on top-notch service leaves customers on hold for 15 minutes, forced to listen to recorded messages in which the bank is bragging about its top-notch service.
All of these disappointments add up. By the time any customer gets to any salesperson, even a customer who has been referred by a trusted vendor, the skepticism level is sky-high.
Plus, there is also another nagging doubt in the customer's mind, when one vendor refers another. "Will this salesperson take advantage of the fact that he has a relationship with the person who referred him? Did the person who referred him do so because the vendor is really good, or because they have some kind of kickback arrangement going on?"
What all this means is that the salesperson who gets a referral has to work harder for that customer's business - if for no other reason than to earn additional referrals in the future. No one wants to refer their customers to someone who is only going to disappoint the customer - or worse, make the customer angry.
The salesperson who receives a referral has to treat that customer as if the referral is a much-appreciated gift. The salesperson needs to pay special attention to that customer, to understand what the customer needs and expects. He shouldn't assume for a second that the sale is "in the bag." He should check frequently with the customer, making sure that all questions are answered. The customer shouldn't have to go hunting for the salesperson. The customer should not have to ask any question more than once, and should receive quick, thorough, and professional answers to every question. This is how you stay on board the customer's boat during the buying process, in any situation.
By Kristin Zhivago on Dec 14, 2007
John Smith is a typical customer in the market for a fairly high-end product, one that requires a salesperson to finalize the deal. He has done his research on the Web - he's spent hours, in fact, researching. Now he has a couple of questions for the salesperson to answer. Otherwise, he is ready to buy. He decides that the best way to get the answers he needs is to go to an industry tradeshow.
I've been interviewing "John Smiths" for a client, and one of them described what happened next, using these words:
"I had to defend my wallet and my family against The Pitch."
He was there with his wife, and as he was trying to get answers to his questions, the salesperson kept trying to close the sale.
From the customer's perspective, this is irritating. Sleazy. Totally inappropriate. You're just asking someone questions, and the whole time, they keep trying to sneak around to the side of you and grab your wallet out of your back pocket.
The salesperson is actually doing what he was taught to do - by all the sales consultants in the world. Plus, of course, he's motivated to close the sale because that's how he gets a commission. So while the customer is just trying to get his questions answered so he can buy, the salesperson is trying to get the question-and-answer thing out of the way as quickly as possible and move right for the "kill."
Teaching salespeople "go for the kill" is part of a big con job, perpetrated by sales training consultants. Another one is the claim that the salesperson should always be "in control" of the sales conversation - I get releases from sales training consultants making that claim almost every day. And the third con job is the "conversion" con, represented these days by "the funnel," which has gotten sexy again because it is being applied to Web marketing. Entrepreneurs, CEOs, and managers are being convinced that they can turn "eyeballs" into "clicks" into "conversions," if they just manipulate the customer the right way.
These sales consultants are wrong. The advice they're selling does line their own pockets, but it alienates the customer - and leaves business owners and managers sadder, poorer, and seldom much wiser. It's a classic case of telling the customer (owners, mangers, marketers, and salespeople) what they want to hear, while ignoring the reality of the real driver of the "sales" process: the buyer.
Now let's look at this from the buyer's perspective, and we'll see what is really going on.
Con Job #1: You're in control of the customer's buying process.
Who has decided that he wants to buy? Who is standing there with a few final questions, and, if those questions are answered satisfactorily, will buy the product? Who has researched the subject on the Web, looking at your site, your competitors' sites, discussion groups, customer reviews, and more? Who has talked to his friends about it, and gotten very specific, emotionally charged recommendations? Who has talked it over with his mate, or whoever else is involved in the buying process?
Who has already talked to other salespeople - and heard how they answer the question? Who has been to the websites, read the description and the specs, and dug down for obscure details?
The buyer, of course.
By the time today's buyer reaches the salesperson, he's not some clueless idiot. He's not going to follow your script; he has his own. It's a movie he's written, produced, and is directing. You are a bit player, not the director. You either follow his lead, or you lose. It's pretty simple.
You're only in control of one thing: How you perform in the buyer's movie. When he comes along, do you help him? Are you honest? Do you pretend to be answering his questions while trying to sneak around and pick his back pocket? Do you avoid telling him certain things because you're trying to "let him be stupid," at his expense, and for your gain? (Hint: This often backfires, because the customer already knows the answer and is just asking to see if the salesperson will tell the truth - or lie.)
When I listen to salespeople taking incoming sales calls, I'm often dismayed by how difficult the salesperson makes it for the customer to spend money. The customer usually has only a couple of questions, and once he has good answers, he will be ready to buy. The salesperson is on another track, one he has been using for years. He even forces the customer to wait while he does his thing - looking up data that the customer didn't really ask for, putting the customer on hold while he "consults" with an "expert," making the client wait while he gets the client's information on his screen, and so on. As the call progresses, the customer loses interest and decides it's time to terminate the call. The salesperson goes on to the next call, unaware - or unwilling to admit - that he has just prevented a sale because he stubbornly insisted on making the customer an actor in his movie, rather than the other way around.
When someone calls you or your salesperson, forget closing. The job is to figure out what the customer needs from you, as quickly and courteously as possible, and then figure out how to give it to him. Even if you don't make that sale, that customer will remember how you tried to help him, and he will either come back himself to buy from you another day, or send others to you. And if you do make the sale, he will remember how nicely he was treated and look for more opportunities to do business with you.
Con Job #2: Conversion = manipulation
These con jobs are obviously related. If you think you're in control of the selling (buying) process, you will think you can manipulate people.
I see this most frequently in website design, where website designers convince clients to cleverly make the client "work for it" and "get involved" - with the use of mouseovers, for example, instead of a simple list of choices.
I clicked on a map recently for a child's book, which had 8 red dots on it, each one representing one of the cities that were featured in the story. Each dot, when you moused over it, had a pop-up city name.
But only half the dots, when clicked, sent you to a description of the city. The rest of the dots, when you clicked on them, caused the page to refresh - and you were right back on the same page, the one with the dot-filled map. Turns out the entrepreneur selling this book was convinced by the website designer that the children buying the book wanted to "hunt" for the live cities. Ugh.
There are two big flaws in this logic. One, a lot of the people visiting the site will be parents buying the book for their children - and they are not about to go "hunting." Two, those city pages are the only place on the site where you get to see "inside" the book, and appreciate the high quality of the content. So the very thing that would sell the book was hidden behind mouseovers and dead links. Stupid.
Yes, of course there is a funnel in marketing. Yes, of course, you must attract eyeballs before you can get clicks before you can "convert" the customer. But as long as you think of yourself as the master converter, you are going to make all the wrong decisions.
The reality is, your job is to get the heck out of the way.
Have you ever been stuck watching a one-joke movie, and gotten bored after the second scene? When it becomes obvious that the whole movie is going to be a repetition of this one joke, there's really no more reason to keep watching - unless you have nothing better to do.
Guess what? Your customer always has something better to do. As soon as it becomes obvious that, no matter what the customer says, your salesperson is going to keep trying to close, the customer shifts from "maybe this person can help me buy this" to "OK, I've had enough of this, it's time to get off this phone call."
The more obvious the closing, the faster the customer will try to get off the call. People have learned to resort to all sorts of methods when called by those terrible telemarketers, to get the caller off the phone as quickly as possible.
"No habla Ingles," they'll say, after they have already said "Hello."
"Whacha say? Wacha selling? 'Scuse me, while I pour myself another drink. There - thas better. Now, let me put my feet up. What? You say you're not selling me anything? Wow. That's cool! Ya coulda fooled me!"
And, of course, there's always the old standby, which doesn't work with the most aggressive ones: "Please take me off your list." As the telemarketer protests, the customer just hangs up.
High school daze
Frankly, it's not pleasant to have someone keep reaching around for your wallet. It's creepy and rude. And no matter how much a salesperson tries to disguise it, by the time the hundredth salesperson has tried to reach around for his wallet, the customer recognizes the signs. I don't care what the salespeople have been trained to say. The customer knows what is happening. He also knows that his own attempt to complete his buying process will be sabotaged by the salesperson who has been trained to close.
Sales training reminds me of the pick-up lines guys used to try in high school. Those of us on the receiving end knew that they had been trained by some admired buddy to say things a certain way. "Works every time," they were told. It doesn't take more than a couple of these lame lines, and the average teenage girl has gotten the gist of things and is completely bored and uninterested within the first two seconds of the "works every time" line.
What should be going on between the buyer and the seller is a conversation - between two courteous adults.
I interviewed the attendees of a business conference recently, and they said it best: "Vendors know so much about the market. They work with a lot of customers. Why can't they share that knowledge with us? Instead of just pushing their product onto us and doing another boring demo, we could learn from what they've learned."
Your customers have questions. You have answers. Why not simply engage in the conversation, treat the customer like a normal human being, stop trying to close, and answer their questions?
This method works - in person and on your website. Give them what they need and get out of the way.
They want to buy from someone, why not you?
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Kristin Zhivago - smartest technology marketing person - ever! I've been in technology sales and marketing for over twenty years. I'm here to tell you that I am completely blown away by her complete command of the issues. Do your career a favor and read everything she has ever written.
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