One of the most rewarding, exciting part of being in sales for me is getting to meet and work with so many new and interesting people. You can learn so much about business, the world and life from customer relationships, especially so if you are interested in your customer's success as much as your own. Dale Carnegie'sclassic How to Win Friends and Influence Peopleis as true today as when he wrote it in the 30s. Another guy I aspire to, John Costigan, likes to say, "be interested, not interesting". It's really that simple because to be "interested" you must...ask questions, be curious, whereas to be "interesting" you must...talk.
I get calls from a lot of salespeople - and let's face it, we salespeople are easy marks for our peers, especially those with talent, because we're most empathetic. There are a couple of things that drive me nuts when I get a sales call. First, I hate it when the caller doesn't ask me if it's a bad time to talk and just launches into a pitch. It's just not respectful and it reduces the callers credibility right off the bat. One of my favorite sales questions is "Did I catch you at a bad time?" - one of my guys used to throw in "terribly bad time", because while it may not ever be a "good" time, it is most often not a "terribly bad" time. You've got 15-30 seconds to engage - the last thing you want is for the prospect to be thinking of the meeting they have in 2 minutes or thinking of the call they were expecting from the same area code. If you are not employing this simple courtesy, make it a habit now. My Mom teases me because I even ask her when I call on the weekend!! "What happens if the prospect says it's a bad time?", an executive asked me the other day. Simple - you ask whether morning or afternoon is best to try them again and then do it. Often times, the contact will go ahead and engage right then because you are different than the other callers...
Another basic mistake I see all the time is reps not doing their homework. I'll get a call and the person knows zero about my business - no reference to shared connections, customers or partners or general questions that are out of context. There is just no excuse for this with the unprecedented availability of information - see Google, Bing, LinkedIn, whatever! So I lose interest immediately though I never hang up without closure because I do believe in a certain level of sales karma.
I already mentioned diarrhea of the mouth as a problem, but I want to rehash a topic a covered in the SE Whisperer. It seems fairly obvious, but I'm still seeing salespeople interrupting customers. I grew up in the business with a bit of the old school. One of my mentors, John Waisath, was a 30 year veteran when he took me under his wing at the Sharp dealership. He taught me that if you spoke before the customer after you asked a question, that you "lost". What it is you lose is credibility and whatever perspective and/or information you would have gained from the customer answering the original question.
I've had this happen to me where a salesperson asked a really thought provoking question and as I thought deeply about the answer, they stepped all over themselves thereby changing my answer and delaying the insight that would have been gained by the original question!! This often happens in team selling, where a manager or technical resource thinks they've got "the line" on the customer's thinking. So you ask a question and they answer on behalf of the customer - unbelievable! When I'm working with new people, I tell the team before a call that even if I ask the customer a completely idiotic question like what color underwear they are wearing to wait for the answer.
Most of these interruptions can be explained by many salespeople's discomfort with silence. But some of it comes with experience - thinking they've "heard it all", I believe many just try to show customers that they understand their problems by trying to complete their sentences. There is a better way! Listen, be curious, understand then share relevant customer success stories.
Here is an idea for you next time you are sharing dinner or drinks with your best customers. Ask them to share with you the top three reasons why they do business with your company, what they like and dislike about salespeople, how they let people in their "inner circle", etc. Ask for stories, laugh, learn...and send the good ones my way!
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