Recently I came across a notice put up outside a housing society in Mumbai. “Salesmen not allowed”. This didn’t surprise me as even in the housing society that I grew up in had a similar rule although it wasn’t explicitly put up outside our gates. Being from the sales fraternity it got me thinking. Why are we as a society so averse to be sold ? Don’t we like to buy ? Well shopping is a hobby for many. People shop even when they don’t really need to. The reality is that we love to buy but we hate being sold. Often, we have heard offensive statements like ‘Salesmen and Dogs not allowed” in private conversation. Why so much hatred for a particular profession ? Why do we often get rude responses like “We don’t need to buy anything?” on the phone when we place cold calls.
I recall an experience during my early days as a Business Development Manager when I was in a customer meeting along with my manager. This CIO of this leading insurance firm abruptly stopped my manager when he was presenting and said “Please stop selling to me. I don’t appreciate being sold.” My manager sounded apologetic and said, “No Sir, I am not selling, I am just telling you some facts.” Well, the business card that my manager had just given to the CIO clearly said, “Sales Director, Europe”. Why did he say “I wasn’t selling” when he was supposed to be doing just that? Wasn’t his job to sell? Was he committing a grave crime by wanting to sell something ?
What if the insurance company’s CEO told his salespeople that they were to stop selling to their customers? This highly paid CIO would have been one of those who would have lost his job. Why are we as a society averse to being sold when selling is the ultimate moment of truth ? If salespeople stopped selling, the other employees – from top to bottom – would stop getting paid. The reality is people don’t really hate buying but people hate being sold. It’s a typical scene in malls when you enter a shop the salespeople come over asking how they can help. Most people, including this writer, asks to be left alone. Various movies have depicted salespeople as smooth talking conmen who can sell you land on the moon and vanish. They are portrayed as the con artists who can lure people into buying anything and vanish away after the sale is done. But many times, you find people believing salespeople to be advisors.
Advisors are the ones who can be trusted. Advisors who can tell the customer that their product isn’t for them and they should look for a competing product. ‘Trust’ is the main factor. Ultimately people buy when they trust you. When they see that they can believe your word of advice. When you go for your sales call if you go with an objective of selling the chances are that you might end up not buying the trust. Instead of keeping on objective of selling keep an objective of buying trust. Sale will eventually happen. It may not happen in this call. It may not happen this quarter or perhaps this year. But it will happen. It will happen if you focus on only one thing. Buying trust of the prospect. This is where many sales leaders go wrong. They expect their team members to come back with an opportunity every time they are on the field. They expect what is the concrete next step in the sales process. When will the close happen ? When will we book revenues ?
There are few managers who would really worry about if the salesperson was able to buy the trust of the prospect. This is the reality of today’s corporate world where people are evaluated on a monthly basis with targets. Nothing wrong with that but in most cases, it misses the bigger picture. It misses the long term perspective. It sometimes forces the salespeople into lying and damaging the long term prospects of the organization. It damages the company’s and the salesperson’s image. Remember people judge the whole company based on the image of the people they interact with, which is always the salesperson to start with. I know of a large IT organization that was known for its ruthless sales culture. It was known for driving sales at the cost of everything. The salespeople prided themselves on how they were able to do a sale when none existed. They were able to sell something that was not relevant to the customer sheerly through the salesperson’s glob talking. Their quarter end parties were full of salespeople who would boast of their sales pursuits. Unfortunately, these salespeople were lauded by the senior management. It took a daring CEO to change that whole culture for they struggled when they entered new markets.
This brings me to the last part of the title of this article. The videotape. No, I didn’t just put it to grab attention as it sounds like a Hollywood movie with a similar name. A large UK conglomerate had once mooted the idea that they will videotape all the sales presentations that are made by potential vendors. They wanted this as they wanted to make sure salespeople do not make false promises. They do not overcommit themselves in sales calls. Afterall not everything can be documented in contracts. The decision makers decide on the basis of what they hear through the sales process – not merely by looking at what’s written in the proposals. Many vendors had objected to this under the pretext that their confidential information might be compromised. I do not know what happened to that rule later. But a confident sales organization would never hesitate at this initiative. It would bring more trust to the sales team. It would mean the sales organization is able to stand up to whatever they commit to their prospects. It would mean an organization that is able to trust its sales teams and the sales teams are able to trust the delivery teams.
The onus of changing the image that sales has got is on the sales teams themselves. Be ready to say No. Be ready to tell the truth that may harm the prospect of your organization in the short run. Tell the prospect what is in their interest. Be their trusted advisor and not just sales contact. Stop thinking of your quotas when you are in front of the prospect. Think from the Buyer’s point of view. Keep the buyer’s interest in mind. Don’t try to do things for your next sales review. Have the courage to stand up to your manager. Don’t be afraid to tell the manager that our offering wasn’t the best suited for the customer at this time. You may lose the opportunity but will win the customer forever. Move away from Sales and Lies to Advice and Truth and their won’t be any need for a videotape.
