Archives for December 2018

Stories are a great way to uncover pain and simultaneously explain what you do. But there is a formula so that you don’t bore the prospect or give too much away. Most sales people don’t tell third party stories during the pain step. They focus instead on asking questions and trying to uncover issues which can lead to pain. That is not a bad thing. But telling a story in the right way can really help the prospect to share the pain when they might be reluctant to do so under direct questioning. Stories have the added benefit of giving the prospect insight into how you work and the value of your service or product. But you have to tell the story correctly. When salespeople do tell stories, they tend to focus in excruciating detail on what they do and how they do it. If you do it that way, you will lose control of the call and end up giving away too much information without getting anything in return.

The best way to tell a story is to do it according to the formula 40-20-40. The first forty percent should describe the problem that a similar customer had. Describe the pain in some detail. The reason you do this is so that the prospect can identify with the example. The pain should be something that you suspect the prospect is experiencing. Then you describe, without much detail, what you did to address the problem. This should take up the next twenty percent of the time allotted for the story. Then finish the story with a description of the Utopian condition after you solved the problem. So, if the story length is 100 seconds, there would be 40 seconds on pain 20 seconds on what you did to fix it and then 40 seconds on Utopia. In general prospects can identify with the pain much better than they can identify and understand exactly what you do and how you do it. There is a time to explain that but the pain step is not the place.

People are interested in things they have no intention of buying. Interest is only the first step in qualifying a prospect. You also need to determine if the prospect has pain and if there is any urgency to solve the pain. If you have all three of those elements you have a compelling reason to buy. Then of course you need the prospect to have enough money and there is the whole decision process that needs to be contended with. The real danger in prospects who are interested in your product or service (and eagerly tell you that early in the process) is that the salesperson gets excited and forgets all about the sales process. They think “Great, finally someone recognizes the value of my product”. Then, having abandoned the sales process, they begin talking. Before you know it, they have stopped listening and qualifying and have explained all the features and benefits of the product and extolled the virtues of working together. And when they finish and try to close they are surprised that they get put off or shut down all together. The lesson is to control your emotions. Do not get excited. Prospects are expert at manipulating you into giving them the information that they need without giving up too much on their side. Listen. Ask more questions. And totally qualify the prospect before you launch into a presentation or provide a quote. You will do much better that way. You can get excited when the check clears.

If you are to be your own boss, you have to do the things that bosses do. For salespeople the boss is the sales manager. Sales managers have goals for each member of their sales team. They demand that the salespeople have a plan to reach their goals. They also have a sales process that they coach their salespeople to follow and they hold them accountable to follow that process. So if you are to be your own boss, you must do no less. You need to have goals that empower you and motivate you. You need a sales activity plan to reach those goals and you need to have a sales process that you follow on each call. But the biggest thing you have to do is commit to doing the activity and following the process. If you hold yourself accountable and do the activity and follow your sales process you work for yourself if not, then you work for your sales manager.