More Sales Lessons From Salespeople

Our SalesCoachCentral members’ “My Sales Story” competition is generating some great stories with lessons for us all to learn from to help us win more new, repeat and referral sales.

Congratulations to our winners for this month who were Ross Clennett and Peter Donald.

Here’s the My Sales Story from Ross:

When I was a rookie temp accounting recruiter I took my Director on a prospect visit. It was to a well known freight company, near the Sydney airport, who I had found out were using a lot of accounting clerical temps.

The visit was with the GM of Finance. I prepared my sales structure and answers to predictable objections, hoping to impress my director. However once we were in his office the prospect proceeded to talk (complain, actually) non-stop for an hour about the office politics and his boss.

I barely got a chance to talk and as we had another meeting scheduled we had to leave promptly after an hour.

As we drove off I was rather flat about the meeting expecting my Director be criticise me for allowing the client to run the agenda. Suprisingly he thought the visit went very well. ‘Why?’ I asked. My Director replied “clearly he isn’t being heard inside his own company and needed an outlet to express all his frustration and resentment. We were that outlet today. I bet he feels we understand him and what he has to deal with each day.”

I have to say I was very dubious – I mean we hadn’t even talked about temps! However the next day I received a call from one of the GM’s direct reports saying she had been told to call me about two temp jobs she needed filling! I filled both those jobs and that was the start of a $100k plus net revenue per annum client.

That experience was a big lesson in understanding that until the prospect feels heard and understood all I was doing was ‘pitching to deaf ears’.

My Comment: The old adage of ‘no-one cares how much you know until they know how much you care’ is probably a bit overdone these days, but the reality is too many salespeople still go in with a ‘pitch’ to a potential client and ‘capability sell’, rather than focusing first on what the client might like to achieve from the meeting, and/or what the client might like to talk about.

At the same time, there is an equally large number of salespeople who do not really focus on the client and choose to ‘fluff’ around with small talk, when what the client actually wants to do is find out more about the products and services that the salesperson can provide.

If we’re truly client focused, we can work out fairly quickly how much talking and listening we need to do to create an environment where the client is comfortable and confident to make a wise buying decision.

Here’s the My Sales Story from Peter:

I was referred to a young couple by a principal of the firm. They were in a difficult financial position. Following the loss of his Dad his mother found it diffucult to meet the home loan left behind ( no insurance ). She offered her son a 25% share in her home if he would take over the debt, which he did. He then married and together they bought an investment unit in 3 names using the equity in Mums house.

They also had some personal debt for cars etc. All this caused stress on the relationships to meet payments and rent. I was able to reorganise their strucure after 3 home visits one of which I arranged they get Mum to attend on a weekend.

The end result was they reduced the no taxable debt quickly and allowed cash flow to relieve the stress. After another year of regular follow up they purchased a home using her mothers assistance. Late last year they had their first child. I also referred them to our Insuracne advisor who arrange appropriate covers for both of them to protect their child.

So referral, follow up and further follow up resulted in a succes story for all. We also now do their tax returns.

My Comment:  I love the way Peter points out that the result was a ’success story for all’.  Selling should never just be about the success of the sale.  The most successful salespeople I encounter are those who’s intention is to create value for their clients.  Their focus is to look for opportunities where their products and services can help people solve problems, meet needs and satisfy wants.

When clients pick up on our intention as being that of genuinely wanting to create value for them, trust is built and deeper emotional and intellectual connections are made.

More stories from members of SalesCoachCentral next month.