What do customers and prospects use to evaluate you?
If you’re like 94 percent of salespeople—we’ve measured it — youhttp://mbedit.sx.atl.publicus.com/apps/pbcsedit.dll/red# believe their evaluation is based on the knowledge you demonstrate and the personal connection you make.
You want them to see you differently from all other salespeople…as you should! That means your ability to differentiate yourself comes down to being more knowledgeable and friendlier than the next salesperson – doesn’t it?
Practically speaking, customers don’t evaluate salespeople, they evaluate their interactions with them!
So stop trying to differentiate yourself. Differentiate your interactions.
Crowded at the bottom?
Imagine that after every interaction, customers pull out a 3-dimensional pyramid rating their interactions with salespeople. They can put theirs with you at the bottom — where simple geometry tells you all other salespeople reside — or at its peak, alone. Bottom: just like all other salespeople. Top: different, valued, trusted, respected.
How do you get to the top? Not by out-knowledging or out-loving your competition.
Your interactions have to be different — very different — from those of other salespeople. Yet the very things salespeople try in search of different interactions almost always have the opposite effect, and make them look like everyone else.
Mindset — what the salesperson believes he or she must do to succeed — is a significant component to the customer interaction.
How does that play out? And how can we apply — in most cases, this means alter — our mindset to foster interactions that the customer or prospect will put at the top of that pyramid?
Let’s pretend we’re a fly on the wall watching a sales interaction. Top-of-the-pyramid sales/customer interactions have telltale signs that you can see. So do bottom-of-the-pyramid ones. Let’s watch both.
Moving to the top
Here are five signs of a mindset that produces a bottom-of-the-pyramid interaction:
Salesperson steers the conversation, driven by a desire to tell, inform, educate, or demonstrate knowledge. Sure, he’s asking questions and listening – but the agenda is to find an answer to give.
Salesperson responds to customer openings (needs, gaps, priorities, objections, questions, etc.) by informing, educating or otherwise directly and immediately reacting to them. Bottom-of-the-pyramid interactions have a back-and-forth rhythm. If the customer happens to mention that safety is a priority, the salesperson immediately touts his or her company’s safety record. And so forth.
Salesperson projects a noticeable desire to be liked and accepted, using rapport as a selling tool. “Hey, nice fish! Are you a fisherman?”
Salesperson projects a subordinate position or a strong fear of appearing unresponsive. “Thanks for your time.” “I know you’re busy.” “I’ll get right to the point.”
Salesperson seems to view the sales situation through a narrow, transactional lens. When all you sell is hammers, it’s funny how everything starts looking like a nail: “What’s the timing of the decision?”
And here are five signs of a mindset that creates a top-of-the-pyramid interaction:
Salesperson processes the conversation driven by a desire to learn and understand. Underlying the question is a belief that, “The better I understand your business the more value I can bring.” Questions do not just try to surface customer needs.
Salesperson responds to openings by clarifying, drilling down, temporarily ignoring, deferring, or even switching direction. “Safety, interesting. Are there any particularly unique safety initiatives you have going right now?”
Salesperson consciously avoids opportunities to build excessive rapport. During all those years that I did joint calls with client salespeople, I constantly had to remind salespeople before every call not to look around the office for an ice-breaker/rapport-builder fish-on-the-wall or picture-on-the-desk. We want different interactions!
Salesperson makes sure customer understands salesperson’s commitment to his own company’s health. That’s right…his own company’s. This is the most counter-intuitive principle in all of sales. Do it wrong and you’re seen as arrogant and unresponsive. Do it right and you overcome your highest hurdle: the master/servant dynamic that is the default mode for all customer/supplier relationships until the salesperson rewrites the script. And conveying this message is the only way.
Salesperson seems to view the sales situation through a wide, business lens. Not, “What’s the timing of the decision?” Instead: “When are you looking at having the system installed and running? Oh, October 1st. Hmm, I’m curious: is there something in particular that’s driving that date?”
Look again at that last point. It might look like the salesperson is just reinforcing the sales situation lens (“Oh, October 1st”). But, crucially, the response doesn’t stop there. It goes on to show the questioner’s much broader horizon — a desire to really grasp the customer’s business conditions and the viability of the opportunity.
You want to change your sales results? Change your interactions. And do that by changing your mindset.
