You might think I have lost my mind. The topic of this article is “How not to be a salesman”. My company, UST, is all about passing on information that I, as well as many other folks that spent their respective careers in professional sales learned through the school of hard knocks. The idea is to assist young reps not to make the mistakes we all made as we grew up in the wonderful world of professional B2B sales. However, the fact of the matter is the term salesman does not have a very positive connotation. Did you ever hear how you know if a salesman is lying? The answer is his lips are moving!
So on our business cards we never put the title SALESMAN under our name. I can’t remember the last time I saw a business card with that title on it. In fact the number of business cards that say Sales Representative on it are few and far between. We use titles like Account Manager, Territory Manager or Account Executive. The reason is people prefer not to be sold to. They want to feel like they made the decision to do business all on their own. The salesman was simply there to take care of the paperwork. This is especially true in the high tech world I worked in for almost 30 years. Clients like Citigroup, GEICO, and T. Rowe Price, for example, who were making multi-million dollar IT decisions, did not want to be SOLD to. At least this is what I gleaned from the numerous interviews I did for my book. They wanted to feel like they made the decision completely on their own. The vendor rep provided information and pricing and the client came to the conclusion without being sold to.
So the sixty four thousand dollar question is how do I represent my company and product without being viewed as a traditional salesman. The answer is actually very simple. In my opinion it boils down to 3 components:
Prepare – Listen – Present
Let’s briefly look at each one
Prepare– Before you make your initial sales call it is absolutely critical to do your homework. Research the company you are calling on. Understand their industry, their products or services, their competitors, as well as their financial strength. Are they a private company or are they public? Then do your best to get some information on the executive you will be calling on. Has he worked at other companies where your product had a presence? Is he motivated by service or price? Do you have anything in common with him? Perhaps he is a golfer, skier, tennis player, motorcycle rider, etc. What common ground can you establish either from a business standpoint or personal level. The more information you gather BEFORE your initial sales call the better prepared and comfortable you will be.
Listen– On your initial call your objective should be to determine if there is a business fit between your company and the prospect. That is it –PERIOD. Because if it is clear that there is no fit then you don’t want to waste any more of your time OR your prospects time on a dead end proposal. In fact I would be bold enough to tell your prospect that your sole purpose for this meeting is to determine if there is a viable business opportunity. Believe me-your prospect will respect your honesty and integrity and you certainly will not be viewed as a typical salesman. Then you will ask fact-finding questions that will assist you in uncovering a business fit. You will LISTEN carefully to the answers and based on them ask follow on questions. Based on the research you did before the sales call in conjunction with the information you received on the call you should be able to determine if the prospect is worth pursuing. I would close the meeting by telling your client that you need to go back to your office and debrief with your technical staff and management. You will set up a follow on meeting ONLY if you believe there is as solid business fit.
Present– After you have digested the information gleaned from your initial meeting as well as discussed it internally with your team, you are now ready to set up your follow-on meeting with the client. Be crisp and on point with the value your product or service offers. It is critical to point out the specific issues or challenges your prospect articulated to you and how your proposal addresses them. This is not a time to present a 30 page PowerPoint on how great your company is. It should be abundantly clear to the client that you are a professional and don’t want to waste your time or his on proposals that don’t make business sense.
This 3- step approach maximizes your time and your client’s. It is therefore a win-win from a time management standpoint. And best of all you won’t be viewed as a typical salesman.