Even though you need to explain things, you want to manage the talk/listen ratio. Nothing can be more boring that listening to someone talk on and on and on—especially if you have something to contribute. In fact, the more you let someone talk, the more interested they are in meeting with you. I remember my days as a sales rep when I picked up a speaker and drove him to the hotel where he was scheduled to talk. After we got settled in the car, I asked him one question about how he came to be interested in his field of expertise. The rest of the hour drive was spent listening to him tell me more than I ever wanted to know. As we approached the hotel, he confided to me: “I can see why you are good in sales. You are a great conversationalist.” I doubt I said more than twenty words.

People love to talk. In selling, you want to encourage your customer to actively participate in the conversation. For only then can you learn more about your customers and their issues/concerns which you are there to help them address. The crucial question becomes, “How do you get people to want to listen to you?”

First, you need to communicate that you want to understand their perspective, their point of view and that nothing is more important to you than learning what they think. Then you want to ask questions that encourage them to open up and share their thoughts and concerns. The key to doing this is how you ask questions.  You should choose questions that demonstrate your sincerity in learning about them. You want to share enough information so that they recognize your expertise so that they will be comfortable in confiding to you. Thinking like the customer, it would be hard to share information about an issue if you (the customer) feel that the person you are speaking to does not have any the requisite knowledge about your issues/concerns.

It helps to remember that conversations are voluntary. Your customer/prospect has taken time from their busy day to talk to you. Let them talk. Don’t monopolize the conversation. Ask questions that are relevant and meaningful. Ask questions that encourage thought and provoke discussion. That way you’ll learn what you need to know so you can position the right product/service to meet your customer’s needs.

What you need is something that can break the schema—something that is powerful and meaningful enough to make the doctor stop what he is doing and actually listen to you. Use the concept of mystery, surprise, or curiosity to engender interest. Surprise captures attention. If what we say is interesting, we’ll continue to get that attention. Mystery breeds unexpectedness and keeps people interested. Arousing curiosity gets our customer’s attention and keeps them interested.

We could say something like, “You know I was driving over here today and I was thinking about how saving for your kid’s college education is a lot like how you think about our product…” You then could transition from how our beliefs drive our behavior and sometimes our beliefs can be slightly different given what we know…

You want to make sure the first words you utter capture attention. Other ideas that work include:

• Using a trigger that relates to something that was discussed on the previous call
• Creating an analogy
• Asking a question that makes the person stop and think

Here is another example to get a physician’s attention, “Doctor, if you had to guess, what percentage of the patients that you need to treat with product X are of child bearing age?” (Of course, the underlying assumption is that the age of the patient has some bearing on which treatment option will work best). But you get the picture. Rather than just saying—thanks for writing my product or remember product X for those diabetic patients, you are asking a question that will likely make the physician pause a minute and think. If you apply the concepts of mystery, surprise, or curiosity, odds are even if the customer does not have the time to talk to you now, they will want to later. And that is the first step in effectively selling your product when you only have seconds to make an impact.

Virtually every sales person would likely agree that they are responsible for developing those essential business relationships with their business colleagues and customers. The bigger question is….how much of the responsibility to develop that relationship resides with you? Before agreeing on a number, let’s step back a minute and revisit why business relationships are so essential.

My personal belief in the importance of relationships is based on what John Maxwell said: all things being equal people buy from people they like. And then he added, and when things are not equal, people still buy from people they like. It is the relationship you develop that sets you apart.

It is so important to develop that valuable business relationship because when you have a relationship with someone, you are viewed differently. The relationship gives you an edge—if developed well, you are perceived to be credible, believable, and trustworthy. And therefore your customers listen to you differently. You get your listener’s undivided attention—and that is quite different from the sales person that your customer may not listen to at all.

In reality, it is your business relationship that determines how your customer evaluates not just the message but the messenger. Who we are is incredibly important in business. So how much of the relationship development is your responsibility? If you ask a dozen people you’ll likely get a dozen different replies: 50/50; 51/49; 80/20. But to be truly effective and vested in the relationship, it needs to be 100/0. Darren Hardy in his blog, “Own Both Your Actions and Reactions in Life” emphasizes why this 100% responsibility makes sense.

Once you assume total responsibility for developing a relationship, your intent and behavior change. Knowing that you alone are responsible makes a big difference. You recognize that the onus falls on you. To paraphrase John Donne—ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for you—assume total responsibility for developing, maintaining and growing those essential relationships in business. That’s what the successful sales professionals do…and that is one of the main reasons they are so successful!

A great way to begin is to examine the products that you sell. Every product probably has three or four discussion points you can share. And you have to be able to discuss any of them extremely well, because what’s appropriate for one customer may not be work well with another. If you develop only one discussion point, you may miss opportunities with customers who would respond to other parts of your product story—and therefore lose that opportunity for a sale.

You want your discussion about your product to be interesting, to be compelling. A compelling discussion uses logical positioning in a way that it connects with the customer and helps them understand how you and your products are different. The best sales discussions combine logic, emotion and visuals…so your customers can “see” themselves or a specific patient type in the scenario. You share the message in a way that they can visualize what you’re describing. Techniques like analogies, anecdotes and testimonials are great ways to make the concepts visual and bring the ideas to life.

From speaking to many sales professionals, it seems that they feel knowledgeable about their products but they don’t necessarily feel that they are good storytellers. That’s an aspect I recommend developing, for you want your sales conversations to attract and keep your customer’s interest. The key to doing this is to combine both logic and emotion. That’s because people tend to buy based on emotion, but they’ll defend their buying with logic.

Your story has to be grounded in a clear hypothesis or a premise, which is your reason for advancing this idea. You can use a powerful visual or create a picture in the customer’s mind, so they can see themselves in the scenario. It should tie back to what you’ve learned in your research and in your other dealings with the customer during the discovery phase. And of course, it must be true…just like anything we say in selling. Try developing several stories for your main product—and see how your customers respond. It’s likely that you’ll see the value in relating stories—and so will your customers.

“When IBM was selling a lot of hardware, new salespeople would grow their business for about 20 months, and then business would suddenly plateau. Management tried to figure out what it was and finally learned that the salespeople, by the end of 20 months, had so much product knowledge and other information they could walk into an account and immediately tell the customer what would solve their problems.”

But having this knowledge wasn’t enough. It seems that they lost the art of selling and how to communicate. They didn’t even try to learn the customer’s situation—because they knew so much, these IBM sales people thought of themselves as the resident experts. They had developed the ability to diagnose the problem quickly so they did not bother to engage the customers—to ask them what they thought. And they didn’t spend the time to develop a relationship.

Imagine the scenario. You as the customer set up a meeting with a sales person—and that sales person comes in and without bothering to learn about your concerns and needs, just starts telling you what your problem is and how they can fix it. We call that prescribing without diagnosing. This is similar to going to the doctor and having him prescribe a drug for you without first performing the examination. You would definitely be suspicious of that prescription!

Most people like to be able to explain their situation, the issues that they face—and then ask for help in solving them. People also like to be validated. Listening is an extremely valuable tool when selling. It gives your customer the opportunity to explain their situation, and perhaps, vent a bit. Besides, one size does not it all. The customer may begin by describing something you are familiar with but wind up with an unexpected twist—that could change the diagnosis. You may find that you do need to recommend a different option or product than you originally thought. Listening also gives your customer the opportunity to feel validated.

One of the best tools sales people have is their knowledge. But that knowledge is worthless unless they can use it appropriately. It is hard to know how to communicate effectively without first learning more about your customer. And the best way to do that is to ask questions. The best questions engender thinking. It can open new doors for the customer—a different way of looking at things. Often the power of asking a question is to help your customer see or think of things differently because of the way you framed the question.

So don’t assume because you have learned so much you know more about what is important than your customer. Some sales people may feel that they know what is important and their customers don’t. Don’t be one of those—involve your customer in the conversation. Take the time to formulate well thought out questions—and as importantly, take the time to really listen to what your customer says. That’s the way you can establish yourself as a valuable resource—and can indeed sell more.

I recall I was eating lunch when I got a phone call from my financial planner, John. He asked if my son had had his picture taken with Santa Claus yet. He then suggested that I take Ryan to a furniture store that was owned by his good friend. Every year at Christmas, this furniture store owner brings in Santa Claus for his good customers. This is not your ordinary meet and greet Santa at the mall where you wait in line and then get a 60-second encounter. This is Santa sitting in a big wing chair, with no more than 2 people in line. The photographer is there to provide you with a keepsake picture and the child can sit on Santa’s lap as long as he wants—they can have a great conversation. Plus there are refreshments. And all of this is free. Thanks to John, Ryan and I have still that picture—and I can remember what a great time he had seeing Santa that year. In my book, that’s priceless.

This is a great example of what we call UTAs: Unexpected Thoughtful Acts. They are just as I described—something unexpected, that doesn’t cost much (if anything), but expresses the thoughtfulness of the person. It is doing something above and beyond the unexpected.

Sometimes in selling, people tend to become cynical. When sales people provide a gift, the customer may feel that the sales person is just providing something on behalf of the company so that the customer will reciprocate and buy something. (Business meals are often reimbursed, for example, so the sales person doesn’t usually incur any expense). That is probably why UTAs work so well—they are more personal. And they don’t have to cost anything. In fact, if they are free, that’s even better. They are things that one person does for another. And that’s the type of gift that affects us as humans. It does make us want to reciprocate.

And I have—I’ve recommended John to friends and colleagues, and have given him our company’s business. John is good at what he does—but so are many other financial planners. By doing more personal things—those UTAs— he has connected to me in ways that others have not. And that’s the person I want to do business with. So keep those things in mind when you are meeting with your customers. Develop relationships with them—and keep a look out for those opportunities when you can demonstrate your own UTAs.

Those of you who have participated in high pressure environments know that they are not ideal. In fact, they are uncomfortable for both the seller and the customer. If you want to grow your business and your relationship with the customer, the high pressure sales call is one to avoid. The opposite situation, the no pressure environment, is also one to avoid. This is where those sales reps who develop friendships are most comfortable. But there is no progress made on the sale—it tends to reinforce the status quo.

In order to change, there needs to be some pressure to do so. This is why the low pressure environment is ideal. With an objective defined before the onset of the call, the sales rep plans the call to gain a commitment. Commitments don’t need to be “to buy today”. In complex sales situations, this is unrealistic. But you do want the customer to make some commitment to action. For by committing to a small action the customer has taken the first step on the path to larger commitments down the road. According to psychologists, making that first step, that small commitment helps the person define who they are. Larger commitments made later that are based on this small commitment just help reinforce that self image.

Another reason that asserting control seemed antithetical to what I’ve been advocating in selling is because people do not like being told what to do. This is a corollary to that hard sell. I know when someone tells me I should do some thing, I don’t want to do it. People want to feel that they are the ones who are making the decision. It is the skilled sales person who knows how to position her product so that the customer can easily see how that product addresses the customer’s identified need and/or want. That’s where the art of selling comes into play. Through thoughtful questioning and involving the customer in meaningful dialogue, the customer feels empowered in making that buying decision.

Although we may be using different words and terms to describe the main attributes of a high performing sales representative, this Sales Executive Council study confirms what I’ve been advocating all along. It’s a great feeling! If you want to learn more about the specific types of training and materials that we have developed at Delta Point to help increase the effectiveness of sales representatives, please peruse our website: gottochange.com. Remember, if you don’t invest time to get better, your competition will.

Asking questions the right way is just part of the solution. Part of asking questions implies that the questioner will listen to the answer. I am continually amazed by sales reps who spend so much time and effort on tweaking the question so that it is just right and then don’t pay attention to the response. I guess that they are so focused on how to ask the question and what the next question should be that they forget the main purpose in asking the question—to learn the answer.

Why you ask the question can be as important as the way you ask it. You don’t want to ask questions that you already know the answer to. Ask questions that you need to know the answer to. You want to respect your customer’s intelligence and knowledge. What you do want to learn is all about your customer—his challenges, concerns, likes, dislikes, and passion. You want to understand the business goals and objectives that this customer is working to attain. Only once you have this knowledge can you correctly position your product in the customer’s mind.

Perhaps the best way to gain this valuable insight is to adapt the philosophy/mindset of Thinking Like a Customer. This is one of our basic tenets—built on the foundation that people love to buy but hate to be sold. It requires putting yourself in the mindset of your customer. The sales conversation then revolves around the customer’s agenda, not the sales rep’s.

Thinking Like a Customer is fostered by creating a safe environment—one in which an open and honest discussion can occur. It means engaging the customer by asking thoughtful questions that lead to understanding those important elements that factor into making that buying decision and as importantly, gaining a true understanding of the customer as an individual.

Once this knowledge is obtained, then it becomes easy to position your brand in the mind of your customer. Market research has likely determined the optimal positioning of the product and this becomes the ultimate goal of selling. Once you learn where your customer currently positions your product, then you can develop a plan on how to move the customer from the existing position to the optimum one.  You do this by asking questions and conveying the sales message in a way that your customer will respond to.  You want your customer to see things in a different way. Ultimately, he may say, “You know, I never thought of it that way.”

Tailoring your message and communication style for resonance is just one important attribute of superior sales professionals. It ties in with developing a business relationship with that individual and learning what matters most to her. So far we’ve discussed two of the three main characteristics that Challenger sales reps share—the ability to differentiate themselves and their products and to tailor their message to an individual customer. Next time we’ll explore the final characteristic.

Educating is an essential component of selling. An effective sales person needs to be able to explain what he is selling by copying what the great teachers do. They involve their students—they ask questions that make them think. That’s why telling features and benefits is not the best way to sell. Anytime someone is talking to you and relating a monologue of things such as features and benefits, it becomes very easy to tune out the conversation. This is what is known as passive listening. Only by asking well worded questions that engage the customer in thinking can change occur.  And when you are selling, you are asking your customer to change their way of doing things. This requires active listening and active participation.

The ability to teach for differentiation has multiple interpretations. One refers to the ability of the sales rep to be seen as different than all the other reps. This involves asking questions to learn more about the customer and tailoring the sales conversation to that individual person. It also means being able to differentiate what you are selling so that the customer understands its uniqueness.

At Delta Point, we often refer to selling effectiveness as three interrelated and interdependent selling capabilities known as KMR: Knowledge, Messaging, and Relationships. Of course knowledge about what you are selling, your products, is the cost of entry. But here knowledge refers to learning about the different facets of the market, the product, the competition, the customer, and themselves. It means continual learning—because all of these elements can and do change.

Messaging is more than the marketing message. It refers to how the sales rep communicates. All the knowledge in the world will not be worth anything if the sales person can’t effectively communicate that knowledge to the customer. Messaging involves asking questions to learn more about the needs of the customer. It means delivering the marketing message couched in words that will resonate with this customer—speaking their language. It involves communicating in the way the customer prefers.  Words do matter—and sales reps can be trained on how to choose words and ask insightful questions that engender thinking.

There is a well known saying in business “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” This does have some basis in fact because people prefer to do business with people they like. You need to know how to develop relationships with all sorts of people—even those you don’t naturally connect with or don’t even like. But developing a business relationship is different than developing a friendship. The business relationship is built on the foundation of helping each other. The sales rep wants to be seen as someone who has her customer’s best interests at heart. After all, part of the definition of selling is “finding out what your customer wants and helping him get it.”

Yes, those challenger sales reps are seen as different than other reps. Teaching for differentiation is one important characteristic that sets the top performers apart. KMR can hold the key to determining what areas need to be developed further to become that top performer rep. My next blog will address the second distinguishing characteristic. But the takeaway remains the same—all of these characteristics are selling skills that can be developed. It is up to you to devote the time and effort to do so.

This study was conducted across multiple nations involving different industries and was based on 6,000 reps from nearly 100 companies. The findings concluded that there are basically five different types of reps characterized by their skill sets and behaviors. Two that were of most interest to me were the “Relationship Builders” and the “Challengers”. Challengers were shown to be the most effective across the board while Relationship Builders were likely the least effective.

Because I’m a huge advocate of developing relationships, some of my colleagues contacted me and expressed concern for they perceived this as a threat to my philosophy that business relationships are tied to business success. However, upon further examination, the study concludes that relationships are important—it is the nature of that relationship that affects how successful the sales rep is. In my view, the Relationship Builders in this study were more focused on developing friendships—not meaningful business relationships. I’ve seen it happen countless times with sales reps—they are afraid to ask for the business because they don’t want to ruin the “relationship”. But this is a friendship, not a business relationship. Business relationships are built on a different foundation—one where both seller and customer provide value to each other. It all goes back to our definition of selling. Selling is teaching and selling is finding out what people want and helping them get it.

Relationships that are built on this foundation develop and grow to where the sales person is seen as a trusted advisor. In fact, the three major components of the Challenger sales model dovetail nicely with the major points of the Delta Point philosophy, mindset and tenets. I’ll explore each of these in more detail in subsequent blogs. The main takeaway is that most successful sales representatives share certain characteristics. These can be developed—people are not born with these talents. And that’s why continuing to sharpen the saw and train sales people on the right way to sell is always worth the investment.