I’d rather have no advice than bad advice.
I can’t help it. I read some bad sales advice the other day, and I’ve got to say something. I’ll try to keep it positive, but my tongue already is bleeding from biting it.
The title read, “When sales calls stall.”
Every salesperson has experienced that barrier in one form or another, so I wondered what this “expert” had to say. Note: I try not to read current sales materials because I don’t want to copy, or be accused of copying, someone else’s work or ideas.
It started with the usual sales dialogue: You have a meeting with a prospective customer, they’re hot-hot-hot for your product or service, they ask for a proposal, you quickly oblige and a week later you call the hot customer. They have evaporated and won’t return your calls or emails.
What to do?
Get ready. Here comes this guy’s (name withheld) expert advice:
He recommends every manipulative sales technique from implying urgency – “buy today or the deal goes away” – to getting creative (whatever that means – no explanation or examples given) and using intrigue. He advises: Be prepared like a boy scout, appeal to a higher authority, assume all is well and they are just busy, use the admin as an ally, and a bunch of sales talk mumbo jumbo. Any seasoned executive or assistant would smell it like a skunk that hasn’t bathed and just laugh at you. And they’ll never take your call again, let alone buy from you.
Here is why this type of approach to a reluctant or otherwise busy buyer will never work:
First: The prospect is not returning your calls for a reason. Wouldn’t it be important to find out why? If you could discover that, it would help your next 1,000 sales calls.
Second: Why did you ever offer a proposal without making a firm face-to-face follow-up sales appointment in the first place? This is one of the most powerful – yet mostly overlooked – elements of the sales cycle.
Third: You’re trying to sell. Stop it. Stop trying to be cute and manipulative.
Fourth: For goodness sake, stop trying to butter up the admin or executive assistant. These people are smarter than your lingo and loyal to their employers, not you.
Fifth: You didn’t connect or engage. Why are you blaming the prospect for not calling you? You did a lousy job in the presentation, left some holes, never discovered the prospect’s real motive to purchase, simply offered a proposal/bidding process and never followed relationship-based strategies. You were more hungry for the sale and the commission than to uncover what would build professional rapport. Why don’t you take responsibility for doing a poor job and take a lesson – not a just a sales lesson but also a relationship lesson.
Caution: Maybe the prospect’s daddy decides, and you never met daddy, let alone know who he is. Maybe someone else higher up the ladder told them “No,” and your prospect is embarrassed or doesn’t care to tell you.
In sales, you have one chance. It’s your one chance to engage and build rapport, to be believable and trustworthy; one chance to meet with the real decision maker; and one chance to differentiate yourself, prove your value and ask for or confirm the sale.
If you miss your chance or blow the opportunity, recovery chances are slim. OK, none.
But not being able to reconnect with a prospect is not a problem, it’s a symptom. And it’s a report card on how well you’re doing and how well the relationship is going.
The good news is lost sales and sales gone wrong are the best places to learn.
If you make a firm commitment to meet a few days later – not by phone – to meet face to face, you have a better chance of discovering the truth. Once you get to the truth, you will have created the atmosphere where someone wants to buy from you.
Sales techniques are increasingly becoming passe. So are the people that stress using them, rather than emphasizing the relationship and value-based side.
I grew up selling, and I grew out of it.
If you have lost a connection or if a hot prospect evaporates, the worst thing you can do is try a sales technique. Why don’t you try something new? Try being honest. No, not just with the customer, but also with yourself.
Jeffrey Gitomer, author of “The Little Red Book of Selling” and 11 other titles, is president of Charlotte, N.C.-based Buy Gitomer. He gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings and conducts Internet training programs on sales and customer service at Gitomer.com. He can be reached at salesman@gitomer.com.
