Chris Murray's Blog: Sales, Sales Management and Customer Service - Posts Tagged "need"
Stop Making False Sales Promises and Tell Me How You Help
Is the sales story in your elevator speech 100% true?
Can you genuinely promise, that the wonderful results witnessed by one or two of your previous customers, will happen to everyone else who works with you?
Here's a question that doesn't appear to be related - but bear with me.
Who Built the Empire State Building – The Financier, the Architect, The Tool Salesman or The Labourer?
Quite often (especially in certain training workshops), sales people are told to build their introductions around the huge amount of money they saved or created for a recent client.
It's supposed to make a 30 second sales pitch sound bold, brash, powerful and tick the “What’s in it for me” benefit box that some sales trainers will tell you your customers and prospects just can’t resist.
Allegedly, it’s the androgynous sales version of covering yourself head to toe with AXE or Lynx. You simply mix the magic words and numbers together and those prospects are helplessly drawn to you like some kind of sales Siren.
Which is just tosh.
If you want my opinion, more often than not, they just sound like they’ve been marinated in fiction – completely unnatural and totally smarmy.
Don’t get me wrong, those facts and figures are incredibly important, but is it really how you like to be sold to?
Do you believe and trust people who quote random numbers at you during the introduction process of your first meeting or phone call? (And do you care?)
The thing is, these days we all know when we're being sold to, we're more sceptical and untrusting than customers ten years ago. That's why you're not convinced and still don't feel comfortable, even after the sales person shows you the company literature with the endorsement from;
Mr. Bob Munchin of Surrey who “couldn’t believe his bulging wallet”, and is now "living in the Cayman Islands after pocketing the extra XXX% saved by this poverty busting product."
So what has this got to do with the question of who built the Empire State Building – Financier, Architect, Tool Salesman or Labourer?
Let’s have a look at them individually.
The Money – Well, someone put the capital in place to finance the project, without which there would have been no raw materials or wages, no one would have turned up. So it could be said that the financiers built it with their cash.
The Architect – Without the initial concept, design or plans, it simply didn’t exist. It was first built in the architects mind and then in real life.
The Tool Company – Without tools and materials the labourers would have had nothing to work with.
The Labourer – They put metal, glass and stone in place. Not as individually irreplaceable as the financiers and the architects – or as highly paid – but they turned financiers money into tangible versions of the architects vision using tools and materials supplied by the tool company.
Commonly in my working week;
• Shareholders and Directors are the financiers of this story
• The Sales Management Team, the architects
• The Sales Trainers (My colleagues and I) are the ones providing the tools
• The Sales Team are the labourers
Did clients I worked with this year;
• Exceed their targets three months in a row?
• Have their best year ever?
• Double their prospects in a single month?
You’re darn tooting right they did!
Was it completely down to me?
No it wasn't.
I just went in, worked out which tools they needed and delivered them as required. They picked up those tools and used them.
It was the hard work that those well prepared, well equipped individuals put in that really made the big bucks – a statement I’m very comfortable with – because it’s true.
Back in the old days salespeople used to seek to talk to The MAN - The person with the Money, Ability and Need. These days they're probably 3 different people - with many more involved behind the scenes in the decision making process. Therefore, an understanding of how you fit into that process and cycle of events, might well be crucial to your success.
So instead of dreaming up and spouting figures that none of us are ever going to believe - tell me, honestly, from your heart – what do you do and how does it help?
Can you genuinely promise, that the wonderful results witnessed by one or two of your previous customers, will happen to everyone else who works with you?
Here's a question that doesn't appear to be related - but bear with me.
Who Built the Empire State Building – The Financier, the Architect, The Tool Salesman or The Labourer?
Quite often (especially in certain training workshops), sales people are told to build their introductions around the huge amount of money they saved or created for a recent client.
It's supposed to make a 30 second sales pitch sound bold, brash, powerful and tick the “What’s in it for me” benefit box that some sales trainers will tell you your customers and prospects just can’t resist.
Allegedly, it’s the androgynous sales version of covering yourself head to toe with AXE or Lynx. You simply mix the magic words and numbers together and those prospects are helplessly drawn to you like some kind of sales Siren.
Which is just tosh.
If you want my opinion, more often than not, they just sound like they’ve been marinated in fiction – completely unnatural and totally smarmy.
Don’t get me wrong, those facts and figures are incredibly important, but is it really how you like to be sold to?
Do you believe and trust people who quote random numbers at you during the introduction process of your first meeting or phone call? (And do you care?)
The thing is, these days we all know when we're being sold to, we're more sceptical and untrusting than customers ten years ago. That's why you're not convinced and still don't feel comfortable, even after the sales person shows you the company literature with the endorsement from;
Mr. Bob Munchin of Surrey who “couldn’t believe his bulging wallet”, and is now "living in the Cayman Islands after pocketing the extra XXX% saved by this poverty busting product."
So what has this got to do with the question of who built the Empire State Building – Financier, Architect, Tool Salesman or Labourer?
Let’s have a look at them individually.
The Money – Well, someone put the capital in place to finance the project, without which there would have been no raw materials or wages, no one would have turned up. So it could be said that the financiers built it with their cash.
The Architect – Without the initial concept, design or plans, it simply didn’t exist. It was first built in the architects mind and then in real life.
The Tool Company – Without tools and materials the labourers would have had nothing to work with.
The Labourer – They put metal, glass and stone in place. Not as individually irreplaceable as the financiers and the architects – or as highly paid – but they turned financiers money into tangible versions of the architects vision using tools and materials supplied by the tool company.
Commonly in my working week;
• Shareholders and Directors are the financiers of this story
• The Sales Management Team, the architects
• The Sales Trainers (My colleagues and I) are the ones providing the tools
• The Sales Team are the labourers
Did clients I worked with this year;
• Exceed their targets three months in a row?
• Have their best year ever?
• Double their prospects in a single month?
You’re darn tooting right they did!
Was it completely down to me?
No it wasn't.
I just went in, worked out which tools they needed and delivered them as required. They picked up those tools and used them.
It was the hard work that those well prepared, well equipped individuals put in that really made the big bucks – a statement I’m very comfortable with – because it’s true.
Back in the old days salespeople used to seek to talk to The MAN - The person with the Money, Ability and Need. These days they're probably 3 different people - with many more involved behind the scenes in the decision making process. Therefore, an understanding of how you fit into that process and cycle of events, might well be crucial to your success.
So instead of dreaming up and spouting figures that none of us are ever going to believe - tell me, honestly, from your heart – what do you do and how does it help?
Sales, Sales Management and Customer Service
Thanks for dropping by and reading my blog. I'm the author of The Extremely Successful Salesman's Club, which has recently reviewed by the ISMM as the Da Vinci Code for salespeople.
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