Sales Training Blog

Unfortunate facts about sales training today

The Fisher Institute for Professional Selling, at the University of Akron, has a great list on their website that describe what is wrong with sales training today. Think about your own sales staff as you read thorough this list which I reproduce with permission:

• Sales managers tend to not understand how different Generation X and Y are in terms of sales training needs.
• Sales people should be more focused on the roles of: market analyst and planner, selling team coordinator, customer service provider, information gatherer, sales forecaster, and market cost analyzer – and this is not the current focus of sales training. 
• Sales people are not adequately equipped to deal with personnel such as production engineers, quality assurance personnel, design engineers, and other technical staff which may make up the buying center.
• The single biggest difference between top performers and poor performers is listening skills, yet most sales people do not seem to understand this.
• 80% of the selling process should be devoted to understanding customer needs.
• Studies show an average 50% error rate in terms of sales people understanding their customer’s expected performance levels.
• 47% of salespeople admit to having no clue about their customer’s biggest concerns.
• 65% of sales mangers focus on building volume instead of wooing profitable customers.
• In order to completely understand customer needs, sales people must have high levels of analytical skills to understand productivity goals.
• An average of only 10% of training is devoted to questioning and listening skills.
• 40% of sales training is designed to increase product knowledge.

Fisher Institute for Professional Selling at the University of Akron is one of the few Universities to offer a college degree in selling and offer sales training for companies. Their website: 

http://www.uakron.edu/cba/cba-home/dept-cent-inst/fisher/training.dot

Are “consultative style” presentations killing your business?

About 15 years ago I interviewed Mack Hanan, who wrote the book, Consultative Selling, and pioneered the sales movement by the same name. At the time, Hanan was disturbed by sales organizations who borrowed the style and semantics of consultative selling while not investing in the content needed to provide a true consultative selling service. He was particularly upset with media sales organizations, most of which he felt, had embraced consultative selling in name only.

Today, that same activity that upset Hanan is alive and well. How many sales presentations begin by appearing to take the side of the customer, imply that great and helpful content useful to increase business and profitability is coming, only to have the presentation deteriorate into a product pitch. Presentations like this are consultative in style only. Customers nod politely through them and five minutes after you leave the room have forgotten everything you said.
Content that fuels consultative selling feels different. It is…
• About their business, not about your products
• About their profitability, not your sales terms
• About their customers, not your customers
• About a new market opportunity
• New information about your customer’s customers they didn't know before

The real damage for using consultative style presentations comes when it marks the end of deeper inquiry into your customer's needs. When organizations believe they are delivering a consultative approach by stylistically shaping their product pitch, a deeper understanding of the customer, and all the opportunities that come with it, are lost. Over time this can kill a company.  

Should I trust American Airlines?

When I heard there was a direct flight back to New York I rushed to the airport early. Outside at the bag check I was miffed when asked for $15 to check my bag. Fifteen dollars? I had heard other carriers were doing it. Stinks, but I had to check the bag.

Good news at the check in counter, there was a direct flight back to New York and it was half empty. Bad news, there would be a $700 charge to go standby. A charge for stand by? That was a new one on me.

In my rush to the airport I skipped lunch. While there was no lunch on my 1 PM flight there would be snacks, for a charge. My lunch that day was a $3 cookie.

The nice guy next to me did not have earphones to hear the movie. No problem. American Airlines sold him a pair for $2.

As announcement of connecting flights began, my neighbor with the $2 earphones grumbled, I’ll bet they charge me five bucks for the connecting gate number.”

One of the best ways to build customer trust is to make the financial side of your customer relationship simple. There is a huge psychological advantage to this because customer satisfaction is based on customer perception, and negative perceptions develop more quickly in a suspicious mind.  

“Simple” fosters trust because it allows customers to drop their guard and just appreciate the product  being delivered. A mind anticipating the next surprise expense will find negative parts of the product that might have gone unnoticed.

Should I trust American Airlines?

Do we trust like cavemen?

How much of our ability to trust or extend trust comes from our genetic make up that originated with our cavemen ancestors? If you believe a research study recently written up in Scientific American, more than you might think.

A chemical known to encourage social attachment and reproduction in mammals also acts as a trust builder in modern man. The chemical, oxytocin, was given to test group as well as a control group who did not receive it. Both groups played a trust game that measured the amount of trust they were willing to extend. In the end, 45% of the oxytocin group extendedthe highest level of trust possible with the control group only 21%.

Trust is a deep pattern of behaviors that helped our cavemen ancestors survive. While I don't believe that trust is just chemical responses, that idea that there are connections indicates that part of our ability to trust goes way back into all our our shared history.

When you train your sales staff

Trust building is a very basic human emotion that goes back to the cavemen. It should not be treated like a simple sales technique. It is far deeper and historical.

Read the Scientific American article

Is Sarah Palin a sales gimmick?

Love her or hate her Sarah Palin shook up the presidential race.

For Republicans she seemed almost too good to be true arriving with a great life story, a great convention speech, and with the right gender to attract interest from disgruntled Hilary Clinton supporters. After being added to the ticket Republican polls and rally numbers surged.

But is the nature of sales gimmicks to always seem too good to be true at first. When used successfully the push is for a quick close immediately after their introduction. But the "close" here is a November election and as the time ticked it was uncovered that parts of Palin's storied life had been enhanced for prime time. As with any human promoted overnight to rock star status, it’s tough when humanity catches up to a legend.

Whether the Palin nomination becomes known as a sales gimmick or not will depend on the substance she shows in the next few weeks. Little substance and she will be VP  road kill. Or she could rise to the occasion with a stunning debate performance against VP Democrat Joe Biden and belay the concerns. 

A fresh new appeal can quickly becomes seen as a sales gimmick if its substance does not match original billing. Once a sales gimmick is exposed as a self serving sales technique it back fires as no buyer, or voter, likes to be taken for a fool.

To avoid the sales gimmick trap don't over sell. Present your product honestly and without exaggeration. Palin may be very capable. But being over sold at the Republican convention has hurt her ability to achieve widespread credibility, at least for now. 
  

How tangible is trust?

Trust is so tangible it can be measured and monetized. Don't believe me? Answer this Hollywood gossip question:

Who do you trust more: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristen Davis, Jennifer Aniston, or Courtney Cox-Arquette?

Now consider, if you were offering one of these actresses a product endorsement deal the key value they bring is in how well trusted they are. The chart is from E-Score research which measures how well trusted celebrities are as an ongoing service to advertisers evaluating potential endorsers.The more they are trusted, the better they will sell products by extending the trust people feel for them. No one buys from an endorser they don't trust.  

If you guessed Jennifer Aniston, congratulations. Now consider that right now there are people on your sales staff who are highly trusted and those less so. Just as with celebrities, the more trusted they are the better they will sell your products. 

  

Trust formula

Clients who do not trust you can give you a hard time. Charles H. Green lays out a simple formula for understanding why some clients will trust you and some will not. According to Green a lot has to do with your self orientation. Here is Green's simple formula for calculating just how trustworthy a client will see you: 

Everything you do to build up trust is diminished (divided by) self orientation.

A client who sees that you are driven by self oriented or your own personal gain will significantly trust you less. Problem clients can smell self oriented salespeople coming a mile off. Always put the clients interests first. 

Take e a quiz on Greene's website to test your trustworthiness

Are You Trustworthy?

 Many clients will act bady if they don't tust you.

"Are you trustworthy?" is a 10 minute film from 1950 that lays out the basics of trust building that every salesperson should see. When young Eddie comes home from school after losing a opportunity to a more trustworthy classmate his 1950's dad shares the lesson. Campy? Yes. A little too "Father Knows Best?" Absolutly. But it is fun and by the time little Eddie exclaims, "It's just like dad said, people have to trust you with the little thing before they trust you with the big ones!" you have reviewed all the basic lessons on trust every cleint you will ever call on wants you to know.

Watch the film