In today’s market selling skills training does not equal product training or pressure tactics. If product training or pressure selling (the hard sell) are on the top of your sales training agenda or the only training you offer your sales people then you may want to rethink your sales training strategy.
What is expected of sales people today by way of skillful thought and action goes way beyond the product or the hard sell.
Let’s first look at what clients want. This will then help us determine what sales people need to be able to do.
Clients today have access to more information than ever before. Clients can make product versus product comparisons very easily. And most clients know what they are after even if they don’t know how to articulate it. Clients don’t expect to be coerced, bullied, tricked or intimidated into buying either. They don’t expect to be treated like an ‘idiot’ or a ‘sucker’ by sales people who just talk at them and flash brochures or product sheets, looking for someone to boost their commissions. Nor on the other hand do they necessarily want to make ‘friends’ with sales people.
Clients expect to communicate and deal with a real professional who knows their own business and how they can best serve their clients’ needs with creative solutions and fresh ideas.
So, what do clients want from sales people?
- To deal with a real professional
- To be ‘helped’ and understood
- Business acumen and commercial awareness
- A definition of what ‘success’ will look like
- A planned approach for change
- Conceptual thinking and empathy
In effect, clients are now after ‘business people’ who can sell that think about possibility and take information to the imagination phase. Clients tend to value subject matter and solution expertise which is not the same as product knowledge. They are looking for partners to help them map a pathway forward into the future and integrate a myriad of components, one of which is product.
Skillful thought and action are among some of the most critical skills in selling; diagnosing and solving problems, opportunity questioning, active listening, paraphrasing and verifying; advising clients on the best use of a product or a solution in relation to their priorities; linking the ‘big picture’ to details and strategy; thinking about possibilities; effective alignment of client and company objectives; listening closely to the needs of clients and being able to feed them back to marketing and technical people for product improvement and market relevance; and understanding the financial importance of client retention.
Effective sales professionals truly add value to client relationships well beyond the product. The product is now only part of the sale, not the sale itself.
This approach to selling is seen as a distinct competitive advantage to businesses and any sales person or sales team not putting these skills into practice is at risk of losing sales and clients. Training sales people in these skills has a significant effect on the profitability of a business.
The stereotype of the ‘smooth talking’ sales person whose job is to convince and persuade people to buy a product is outdated and, most of all, ineffective.
The skills we highlighted above are often described by those less enlightened sales individuals as ‘fluffy’ or ‘niceties’ and seen as irrelevant. These people were either unable to extract themselves from the product or at worst only saw their clients as a means to an end, i.e. it was only about extracting as much commission out of the client to serve their own needs – not a real partnership for a mutually beneficial relationship.
It may be worth noting that, both locally and overseas, there is an emergence of a critical skill which is ethical decision making in sales. While not included in most selling skills programs, we are seeing a growing interest in this aspect of selling being included in training. You have probably gathered that this always been a common thread through my writing and our work at Barrett – now it seems for obvious reasons.
Ethical training for all employees is coming through loud and clear. This is also closely linked to ethical corporate culture, code of conduct, brand, reputation, and customer loyalty. As sales people have direct contact with prospects and customers, it would be advisable to have ethical decision making on the selling skills agenda as well. I will discuss this specific topic in more depth in the coming weeks.
It is worth making sure your sales people conduct themselves with skillful thought and action as it may well deliver handsome payoffs.
Author: Sue Barrett is Founder and Managing Director of BARRETT.
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