Two things most of us hate about sales people
17 August 2009
What do customers and prospects say are the two most common mistakes made by sales people?
A long long time ago in a place far far away – someone taught me that you are always selling whether you like to consider your self a sales-person or not. Because whether you are attempting to win control back over the remote control for the TV from your eight year old, convincing an employee to raise his performance, trying to get your mechanic to fix your clutch a day earlier or for a more reasonable price... you, me and everybody are “influencing others” = we are all, at times, selling...
Now if we are going to have an impact on an “audience” it makes some sense to find out something about that audience so as I wanted to improve my own selling skills I decided to do some research on generic “customers and prospects” to help improve my own approach.
I asked a team of people to ring 600 companies in the South West of the UK and then ask two questions
- What are the main criteria that you would judge a potential new supplier, knowing you'd want to work with them for some time..?
- What traits or behaviours do you like least in sales people who visit or call you..?
In today's blog we will cover the 2nd question...
What did this research show?
The two most common “mistakes” ~ if I can call them that ~ were
a. Talking too much
b. Not asking sufficient or any questions
Be careful before you cast judgement... remember we are “all” sales people at different times in our busy daily lives whether you have that word “sales” in your job title or not. This means each and everyone of us are in danger of falling into one or more of those poor habits.
When in “influencing” mode (code for selling) there is a strong in built temptation to slip into “tell mode” ~ to develop and expound an interesting story, describing the various facts, features, advantages and benefits of our ideas and proposition. Unfortunately.... this can easily mean we
- Start with our self interest – from our point of view, so easily “disconnected” from that of our audience and...
- Keep going – talking, explaining, enthusing, highlighting, so easily “irrelevant” to your audience.
Check out any guru on influencing skills
- Covey ~ Seek to understand before seeking to be understood
- Svennberg ~ Let your listeners speak
- Caldini ~ People have an inherent desire to return favours, first them and then you.
- Fisher & Ury ~ Rather than listening attentively to the other person, parties may instead be planning their own response, or listening to their own constituency.
And the Grand-Father of them all Mr. Dale (How-To-Win-Friends & Influence People) Carnegie
- Become genuinely interested in other people.
- Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
- Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
- Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
- Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
When we listen well to another person, by that very same action we give the three massively important things which we all crave and have done ever since our birth.
- Attention
- Acceptance
- Approval
Attention
If we are listening that of course means the other person is doing the talking and whoever is doing the bulk of the talking has very high levels of mental attention, the talker has high levels of awareness of themselves and what they are saying, they are far more involved and engaged than the listener. And with all this involvement and engagement something happens at a psychological and relationship level inside the talker; the “talkers” trust in the “listener” goes up...
Acceptance
Of course while the other person is listening, they are listening to the ideas and views and opinions of the “talker” ~ the “talker” gains the feeling that they are being heard and as the “listener” is doing just that... “listening” it seems their ideas are being given respect, as there is no argument or indication of rejection, it seems to the talker that their ideas are being accepted.
Approval
A good active listener would probe and ask supplementary questions based on what the “talker” had said. This demonstrate
better than many things an appreciation of their point of view and if the talker senses that the listener can see things from the talker's self interest, sense the listener is on their side, trust grows...
Now of course ~ if you needed to influence someone else there is no value in...
- gaining the other person's trust
- seeing the other person's self-interest
- making the other person feel accept
- keeping the other person fully involved and engaged
...or is there..?
If you want to sell to another person, or influence another person ~ get them talking, explaining their interests, their point of view, their needs and problems, their preferences and decision making criteria ~ oh yes and of course their trust in you grows... Not only do you know how they are wired so you can present your ideas in alignment with their values, drives and needs – they are far more likely to trust what you say.
So when you want to sell or influence another person – get the other person talking and listen as if everything depends on it – because it does...
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To retain talent or not? Is that the question?
6 August 2009
There is a lot written and said about “talent management” & “talent retention.” If we sign up to the concept that some of our people are blessed with a certain especially valuable talent…
...there are at least two questions to consider are;
- How do we retain their services rather than loose them to competitors or to a “start-up”?
- How do we ensure they apply their talent to the maximum whilst they are with us?
For me the answers are simple ~ not necessarily easy ~ but definitely simple.
- Trust-worthy authentic Leadership ~ their boss confirms their talent, invest time and effort with them and isn’t afraid to tell them what they need to hear rather than just what they want to hear. The authentic leader counsels, guides and corrects as well as affirms, rewards and supports.
- The “right” congruent situation ~ the company from it’s brand values, it’s culture, the future ambitions to it’s products and services enable the person with talent to apply that talent and know it is having a positive impact.
It is easy to lose our way in a company because we can’t find the role to apply our gifting or we don’t get sufficient feedback that our work is making a difference.
What are your thoughts on “talent retention..?”
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Does communication travel?
4 August 2009
Multinationals have to communicate across the globe with dispersed team and smaller operations including many
consultancies work in alliances and partnerships across different markets. Victoria Secrets from the USA or Marks & Spencer from the UK have manufacturing arrangements with Sri Lanka; financial operations in Western Europe are increasingly moving call centres to India and Pakistan.
Not only will the ~ not invented here syndrome ~ come into to play alongside language but so too will the cultural differences, so slight and subtle that having a qualification in a second language may not actually help too much. To get key communications right on target
the deep grasp of idiosyncrasies is often only appreciated by a native person living in that country at that time.
There are plenty of examples of the wide gulf of understanding between America and the UK, even though in theory we both speak the same langauge, and there are the classic and expensive errors of not allowing for multiple languages in one location, like the Vauxhall Nova car; No Va meaning No Go to Latin speakers.
But it is often the cultural differences that cause the problem rather than the language itself.
- Whether it is possible to give open feedback to colleagues, or
- Permissible to ask a senior people a question,
- The length of time required for social preliminaries before starting the main conversation.
These are often the critical areas that require special thought to ensure your communication can travel, let alone whether the space require for German or Mandarin text is different from English…
How do you achieve consistency in the face of all this diversity?
I would appreciate if you could consider the factors listed below and add some thoughts of your own...
Some key factors to consider with international communication
- Time zones ~ do everyone is at the best at the same time
- Language ~ 1st or 2nd language does make a difference to the exchange of meaning
- Cultural practices ~ it is not what you do it is the way that you do it, each culture views things slightly differently
- Courtesy ~ Respect is important to almost every culture and is shown in different ways
- Pleasantries ~ At least make the effort to learn the basics greetings and use them
- Humour ~ does NOT travel well, avoid as best you can
- Tone ~ Voice tone and intonation changes meaning, use locals whenever possible
Let me know your experiences…
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