“I'm told my salespeople are self-centred, overly technical and using poor practice”
Oh deary me
We better have a look at these
๐ Orange Hat Thinking ๐
โ Self-centred
When the salesperson isn't customer focused
It's all about them
Me, me, me. We, we, we. I, I, I.
Our product. Our service
They talk about themselves way too much
Maybe you've sat in presentations where people are thinking
'Well, this is all wonderful. I'm so happy for you, but you're not saying anything about me’
It doesn't work and people get bored of it quicker than ever before
โ Too technical
I’ve seen people get right down in the weeds with a whole bunch detailed stuff (particularly engineers)
Sometimes it’s needed. Sometimes it’s not
When the salesperson’s fascination with the technicalities are not what's required by the customer they tune out
โ Poor practice
Bad techniques from a bygone era of selling
Once thought to a good way of working, but they're not
I'm talking about the manipulative, pushy stuff
It doesn't work
If anything it will push people away
โถ๏ธ We can beat this by getting more modern
The trick is to flip, follow and focus
๐ถ Flip
All about flipping your attention onto the world of the customer
Rather than talking about yourself and all these wonderful things about you, talk about the customers first
It's should be an easy thing to do, but some people find it hard
And so their presentations are upside down
People don't care about where your office is, don't care how many years you've been in business, don't care about all those logos
All that stuff that we see at the front end of a presentation, folk don't care
Their favourite subject is themselves
So if we can flip that and start talking about them, that makes a huge difference
๐ถ Follow
Talk about the customer
Follow an approach that drives this behaviour
Think about how to identify issues, rather than trying to force a solution
How do we manage a conversation to make it about the customer?
That’s process, that’s structure, that can be trained
๐ถ Focus
Customers aren't stupid, they can tell if you're not really listening and just waiting to talk
So focus on trying to make a difference for the customer and do the things that actually work
Don't bother with the old school tricks, the closes, all that sort of stuff, it's nonsense.
What works now is different.
There's been shifts in the way we sell (and people buy)
Quite a few shifts, and there are more coming faster than ever before
There are things which we need to be doing to be successful today
We can make those shifts
I know we can
I've done it and I've worked with loads of people where we've moved them into doing this
Stuff that's relevant
Right for them, their industry, their customers
Time to shift ๐งก
