It is all too easy to forget this fundamental in our age of ROI, NPV and Cost/Benefit, but it is critical to remember - At it’s core, buying is an EMOTIONAL decision.
I was reminded of this today when I picked up a tweet from the Harvard Business Review that mentioned the concept in a blog post by Clif Reichard. Cliff is a 55 year veteran of sales and customer service. We can all learn a lot from that type of experience.
Cliff says that ”…Many sales organizations do little to create an emotional connection with prospective customers and concentrate instead on hype-filled sales pitches. We do the opposite: By conveying our warm feelings, we create an emotional bond without appearing phony or insincere. Then, by making an objective presentation, we show that we respect our customers’ ability to make their own judgments. The art of selling is in the heart, not the brain…”
Being honest with yourself, when is the last time that you and your team put as much energy into the heart of a pursuit as the brain?
A mentor once told me that ”Sick companies are internally focused – Healthy ones are focused on their customers.” Wise words from a wise man. Thanks, Larry.
With the economy slowly crawling out of the funk, where are the leaders in your company focused? It’s easy to become entranced with YOURSELF. Think about it. Do you spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy looking at your own company’s Operations? Alliance Relationships? Cost Containment/Reduction? Organizational Structure? Market Segmentation? Inventories? Corporate Branding? If so – STOP!
These are all necessary concerns. But they are also a very - dangerous - distraction from your most vital area of focus in this moment - The Client!
If you take your eyes off the client right now, you run the risk of buying your stock high and selling it low. How so? You burned a lot of calories keeping clients during the downturn (never worked so hard for so little myself). If you focus internally now, you may have burned them in vain – only to have a competitor snatch the client away from you as you focus inward and miss the first signs of the recovery.
Instead…Spend as much of your time as possible with clients. Have progress report meetings to brag about all that you did for them in the past year, hold peer-to-peer executive lunches with them, bookmark web articles of interest and share them with clients, make twice the cold calls than you did last month, do a speaking engagement, double your contacts at a given account this week…
…However you want to…
…FOCUS ON THE CLIENT right now!
In their great white paper, Selling in the New Normal, Jeffrey and Chad Koser (authors of Selling to Zebras) cite Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, coining the term a “New Normal” to focus and re-engage GE in the economy we’re dealing with for the foreseeable future. More on this white paper in future posts, but for now…
One of their more interesting points is that post Great Recession, the people you sell to don’t have the decision-making power they once had. It’s dangerous for your sales if you don’t realize that. What’s worse is, sometimes even they don’t know it. “A decision that once required director-level approval now goes to the CFO. Previous CFO-level decisions go to the CEO or board.”
Not talking to C-level executives? You’re going to need to change your approach.
In my nearly 20 years in business development, many things about sales have changed. One of the most significant is the slow and steady evolution of the power / authority in a sales process migrating from the “seller” to the “buyer.” At one time, the seller controlled all. Manufacturers made things, sellers sold them. They would arrive at the buyer’s office with a bag filled with collateral which included the sum total of information on that product and its specifications. The seller was the authority and controlled the transaction. For reasons to many to list here, including most powerfully the internet, that equation is turned on its head. Buyers are now in the driver’s seat. References on this phenomenon are readily available. Three of my favorites, however, are The New Solution Selling, by Keith M. Eades, Customer-Centric Selling by Michael T. Bosworth and John R. Holland, and The Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer. I could run a blog for months just posting about these approaches, and will be citing them often, but regarding my post today, they have one theme in common. There is no such thing as “selling” anymore. It’s about helping your clients win and matching your selling process to their buying process. Once you accept that fact, your success as a salesperson can really take off. I highly recommend you check thes books out.
