Your Salespeople have lots of skills.  Unfortunately, they are probably the wrong ones.

Buyers do NOT trust salespeople.  So they have created a system to deal with them.

The system of the buyer is designed to:

• Provide the buyer with a feeling of control and security.

• Place the buyer in a strong negotiating position.

• Strip the salesperson of any differentiation.

In other words, the buyer’s system is designed to turn salespeople into apple vendors.   Let’s call your top vendor Super Mario.

Buyers want you to believe that your apples are no different than anyone else’s.   In their mind, it must be Mario’s job to PROVE that your company’s apples are worthy.

For most unsuspecting apple vendors like Mario, the buyer’s system creates the intended transactional dysfunction and feeds right into his behavioral preferences.  Succumbing removes all differentiation from Mario and your company.  Like most salespeople, Mario is equipped with traditional “selling skills” and unfortunately feels most comfortable deploying them along with all the other apple vendors.  He quickly proceeds to:

• Tell
• Present
• Demo
• Shine Your Company Apple
• Provide References
• Give Quotes
• Wheel and Deal
• Use Goofy Closing Tricks
• Send (Unqualified) Proposals

If Mario is competing against four other apple vendors, the good news is that he might win “his share’ of around 20% of the business.   The bad news is that he will waste loads of time, consume plenty of company resources, cut deeply into your profitability and further commoditize your company reputation.

If Mario wanted to differentiate, develop trust, win far more than “his share” of sales, and drive lots of profit to your bottom line, he would instead need to:

• Slow down a lot
• Start Being (versus acting) Trustworthy
• Care
• Listen (actively and empathetically)
• Stop asking leading questions
• Ask many more questions
• Ask better questions
• Ask tougher questions

Behaving in this new way would require Mario to leave his comfort zone.  For many salespeople, this never happens.  They behave the way they are behaving because they CHOOSE to behave that way.    Most choose to behave like apple vendors.

Taking your sales to the next level is not rocket science.   But in most cases it requires a commitment for salespeople (and their managers) to stop vending apples.

Copyright © Joe Zente 2012. All Rights Reserved.

Many Business Owners and Sales Managers place a highly disproportionate emphasis on the importance of sending plenty of proposals.  The (incorrect) assumption here is:

More Proposals  =  More Sales  =  More Profit

Nothing can be further from the truth.  In fact, the equation should read:

Better Qualification  =  Fewer Proposals  =  More Profit

Many years ago, I was recruited to run a sales organization with 7 salespeople.  The company CEO was a brilliant PhD nuclear scientist and a very analytical guy.  He was beaming as he handed me a huge 3-ring binder stuffed with over two hundred quotations the company had delivered over the last several months.   These proposals were complex.  The cost to the company to create each one was huge.  The CEO excitedly proclaimed and believed that these quotes were “just dying to be closed”.  

It took about two weeks to thoroughly follow up on every proposal.   You can probably guess what we discovered.  Not ONE of these “hot sales prospects” had any intention of buying.   In fact, nearly half of them couldn’t even recall receiving a proposal.  Every “prospect” had other priorities that had nothing to do with purchasing this company’s product.

We were soon able to turn things around by simply focusing the attention of the sales team on some real business opportunities, but I’ll never forget the lunacy of this company wasting all of those resources chasing ghosts.

How much money and energy is your company wasting with unqualified sales prospects?

For the majority of salespeople, their “hot prospect pipeline” and the volume of profit they return to their company’s bottom line are inversely proportional.   Many simply don’t have a clue about time management or the value of an hour of their own (or your company’s) time.

A high level of sales activity is crucial, but never confuse activity with productivity.  Generating and launching unqualified proposals is a costly example of a rampant and unfortunate dysfunction known as Premature Satisfaction™ (aka:  The Destroyer of Profit).  There is a simple cure for this organizational disorder.  It only requires some tools, some rules and a little discipline.

For starters, every opportunity should be thoroughly qualified before company resources are invested in creating proposals.  A Qualifier Checklist is a great way to begin this process.

Secondly, all sales activities should be singularly focused upon either moving the sales process forward or to closing the file.   Anything in between is pure wheel-spinning — useless activity disguised as “work”.

A “yes” is fine.  So is a “no”.  It is the “maybes” that tear into both your revenue and profit lines.

Some other popular and dysfunctional wheel-spinning activities include:

• Excessive internet research (and other busywork) to avoid making phone calls
• Sending literature, letters, and emails to avoid making prospecting calls.  
• Allowing the buyer to control the sales process.
• Accepting prospect meetings without a clear, mutually acceptable agenda.
• Talking & presenting when you should be listening & understanding.

If you are looking to build more predictability, consistency, visibility, scalability and profitability into your sales effort, take a hard look at your Sales Pipeline and begin eliminating Premature Satisfaction™ today.

Copyright © Joe Zente 2012. All Rights Reserved.

Every week, I speak with salespeople who ask: “How can I overcome difficult “objections”?

I respond by asking some more effective questions:

1. Are you sure the comment was an objection, or did you simply HEAR it as one?
2. Why did you give the buyer something to object to in the first place? 
3. Would you like to know how to eliminate objections, once and for all, from all of your future sales calls?

If you are a salesperson, you may believe that overcoming objections is important.  You may have even read articles or attended classes specifically intended to increase your skill in this area.  Please consider changing your paradigm. 

The fact is that the very concept of handling objections is just short of insanity.   There is absolutely ZERO benefit you can gain from even attempting to overcome a sales objection.

I sincerely hope you will stop trying to handle objections forever by the time you’re done reading this article. 

Here are a few things to know about objection handling:

• For every objection you “overcome”, your prospect will produce at least two more.
• Handling objections will increase a buyer’s resistance.
• Handling objections will set up a buyer/seller negotiation instead of a trusting, adult conversation.
• The objection rarely has anything to do with real problem.
• Objection handling is your effort to correct the prospect.  Most people hate to be corrected.
• People can only object if you give them something to object to.

Have you ever handled an objection, only to have the prospect say:  “Wow!  Why didn’t I think of that? Where do I sign?”  I suspect not.

So if you can’t handle objections, then what should you do instead?

Begin by behaving in a way that prevents objections from being raised in the first place.  Buyers can only object if you give them something to object to.  So for starters, STOP trying to convince prospects that you are right for them.  Sure you are great, but the fact is that you are not for everyone.  So spend more time listening than telling, find out where the prospect is and where they want to be, and stop rushing into telling them how you are going to save the day.

Next, stop hearing objections.  Every time your prospect says something that you hear as an “objection”, your blood pressure rises and you likely become emotionally involved.  When this happens, most salespeople lose objectivity and shift immediately into presentation mode or deflection mode.  Both of these sound defensive and create resistant reactions in buyers.   This Seller-centered approach to hearing objections also shifts the focus away from the Buyer’s REAL problem, wasting time and creating a complete mess.

So decide today to stop hearing objections.  It’s really not that difficult to do if you make a commitment.  When your prospect says something that you formerly heard as an objection, simply hear it as their opinion.   Mature communicators don’t overcome opinions, they simply engage in adult conversations.  Great salespeople go one step further and become intensely curious and interested.  So if a prospect shares an opinion that differs from your own, remain objective, validate the importance of their opinion, pump up your curiosity, listen actively, and attempt to learn things like:

• why do they feel that way?
• when did they start?
• what if they didn’t?
• where does this opinion fall in terms of importance relevant to other opinions they shared?

Remember, how we THINK determines how we behave.

And how we behave determines our level of success.

Thanks for reading.  I would love to hear YOUR opinions….

Joe

Copyright © Joe Zente 2012. All Rights Reserved.

Every week, I speak with salespeople who ask: “How can I overcome difficult “objections”?

I respond by asking some more effective questions:

1. Are you sure the comment was an objection, or did you simply HEAR it as one?
2. Why did you give the buyer something to object to in the first place? 
3. Would you like to know how to eliminate objections, once and for all, from all of your future sales calls?

If you are a salesperson, you may believe that overcoming objections is important.  You may have even read articles or attended classes specifically intended to increase your skill in this area.  Please consider changing your paradigm. 

The fact is that the very concept of handling objections is just short of insanity.   There is absolutely ZERO benefit you can gain from even attempting to overcome a sales objection.

I sincerely hope you will stop trying to handle objections forever by the time you’re done reading this article. 

Here are a few things to know about objection handling:

• For every objection you “overcome”, your prospect will produce at least two more.
• Handling objections will increase a buyer’s resistance.
• Handling objections will set up a buyer/seller negotiation instead of a trusting, adult conversation.
• The objection rarely has anything to do with real problem.
• Objection handling is your effort to correct the prospect.  Most people hate to be corrected.
• People can only object if you give them something to object to.

Have you ever handled an objection, only to have the prospect say:  “Wow!  Why didn’t I think of that? Where do I sign?”  I suspect not.

So if you can’t handle objections, then what should you do instead?

Begin by behaving in a way that prevents objections from being raised in the first place.  Buyers can only object if you give them something to object to.  So for starters, STOP trying to convince prospects that you are right for them.  Sure you are great, but the fact is that you are not for everyone.  So spend more time listening than telling, find out where the prospect is and where they want to be, and stop rushing into telling them how you are going to save the day.

Next, stop hearing objections.  Every time your prospect says something that you hear as an “objection”, your blood pressure rises and you likely become emotionally involved.  When this happens, most salespeople lose objectivity and shift immediately into presentation mode or deflection mode.  Both of these sound defensive and create resistant reactions in buyers.   This Seller-centered approach to hearing objections also shifts the focus away from the Buyer’s REAL problem, wasting time and creating a complete mess.

So decide today to stop hearing objections.  It’s really not that difficult to do if you make a commitment.  When your prospect says something that you formerly heard as an objection, simply hear it as their opinion.   Mature communicators don’t overcome opinions, they simply engage in adult conversations.  Great salespeople go one step further and become intensely curious and interested.  So if a prospect shares an opinion that differs from your own, remain objective, validate the importance of their opinion, pump up your curiosity, listen actively, and attempt to learn things like:

• why do they feel that way?
• when did they start?
• what if they didn’t?
• where does this opinion fall in terms of importance relevant to other opinions they shared?

Remember, how we THINK determines how we behave.

And how we behave determines our level of success.

Thanks for reading.  I would love to hear YOUR opinions….

Joe

When you are buying a product or service…:

• Do you trust salespeople?

• Do you like to be sold?

• Do you prefer to deal with a salesperson who is sincerely interested in helping, who asks questions to facilitate mutual discovery, and who listens intently to where you are and where you want to be, or do you prefer the type who can’t wait for you to stop talking so they can tell you all of the wonderful things about themselves, their product and their company?

Most people do NOT trust salespeople.  They need and want to buy, but hate to be sold.

Now let’s be brutally honest.  When you are in a selling role…:

• Are you anxious to share why your product and company is great?
• Are you more comfortable talking about your product than asking tough questions?
• Are you listening more selectively than actively?
• Does your blood pressure increase when you perceive a “buying signal”?

• Do you try to convince people to buy your product or service?   If so, why?

• Is it possible you are addicted to Convincing?  

If you answered yes to one or more of the questions above, you may be a Convince-aholic^© .   If so, you are likely exhibiting a variety of behaviors that is dramatically reducing the quality of your relationships, your selling effectiveness, and your income.

ADDICTION IS SELF-DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR that temporarily fills a void created by unmet needs.  Most existing sales literature and training programs actually FEED the Convince-aholic Addiction^© by keeping you focused upon asking “leading” questions, manipulation, and slight-of-hand.   Each of these convincing techniques will diminish a salesperson’s ability to develop TRUST, the cornerstone of any successful relationship and the foundational skill of the world’s most successful salespeople.

Some characteristics that come out of Recovery Literature follow.  Please consider the parallels:

The Additive Experience

1. Creates predictable, reliable sensations.
2. Becomes the primary focus and absorbs attention.
3. Temporarily eradicates pain and other negative sensations.
4. Provides artificial sense of self-worth, power, control, security, intimacy, and accomplishment.
5. Exacerbates the problems and feelings it is intended to eradicate.
6. Worsens functions, creates loss of relationships.

If you believe you may be a Convince-aholic and would like to assess the severity of your addiction, please email me and write “I May Be Addicted” in the subject line.

I’ll send you a confidential test that will allow you to determine the extent of your addictive convincing severity and, if you are committed, to begin a recovery program leading to richer relationships and more sales.

Continued Success!

Joe

Copyright ©  Joe Zente  2011.   All Rights Reserved.