Tough Times Call For Tough Salespeople, Not Consultants

Written by Drew Cameron    Comment & Respond    Print Article

As a traveling sales trainer, coach and business development consultant, I work with salespeople across the United States and am in homes with these salespeople every week.

The most important lesson I teach, and the one salespeople I ride along with tell me makes the biggest difference in how they approach every sales opportunity, their performance, and personal income, is the positioning, timing, control and flow of information shared with potential customers.

Overwhelmingly, I find the majority of sales are lost due to the fact that the salesperson gave out too much information, the wrong information, or information at the wrong time.

While salespeople may have the required knowledge and expertise to help people and are motivated to perform at a high level, most feel that in order to make a sale they need to convey their knowledge to their prospects in an effort to build credibility if they hope to close.

The problem is that the prospect does not know how to buy a comfort system so providing information without teaching them the proper process for making such a purchase is a waste of time for both you and your prospect, yet your prospect does not realize it unless you tell them so.  They want to comparison shop much like they do for cars, electronics, etc.  The issue is that they cannot do so since a comfort system has to be installed, serviced and maintained and is only as good as the skills, knowledge and expertise of the technicians installing and servicing the equipment.

The salesperson’s primary role is to educate the prospect as to the proper process for making such a major investment and then to guide the prospect through the process.  Any other strategy will result in the salesperson sharing too much information, the wrong information, or information at the wrong time, and rarely yield a sale.

As such the salesperson becomes a professional visitor and unpaid consultant.

Consider the following:

• Sharing too much information creates delays and delays destroy deals
• You do not have time to provide free consulting
• You are not paid to give advice
• Prospects will gladly take your advice and then use it against you
• You need to interview the REAL prospect, and giving information will not accomplish that
• Talking about solutions makes their pain hurt less, and thus the problem does not seem so big or severe – this is counterproductive to selling
• Customer perceives that a little help can solve their problem
• You actually mitigate the customer’s sense of urgency
• Information does not build rapport or relationship
• Questions to understand the prospect’s compelling reasons to buy are better than sharing information
• Your job is to change the prospect’s view of the buying process as one differentiated by the installing and service-providing contractor, not validate their instincts to comparison shop products and brands

Published: October 8, 2009 7:29 PM by Drew Cameron