The Art of Selling

I have come across a number of very smart people who know their subject matter very intimately who however struggle to sell or get support for their ideas. They often feel frustrated and tend to either leave (and feel like they are in a groundhog day situation in their subsequent roles as well) or give up and fall into a zombie zone doing the bare minimum to stay in their current roles.

A few of them have come to me for advice and they tend to be defensive when I challenge them regarding their situation. They usually blame the rigid ecosystems, point to egregious cases of nepotism, their managers' lack of appetite for new ideas etc. However they seldom seem to think what they can do to stand up and be counted.

The starting point for any problem solving is to recognize that there is a problem, identify it clearly, then look for options and then select the right one given the circumstances before putting it into action. While yes sometimes the multiple reasons people give may well be true, those are seldom in one's control. The only thing in our control is our response to the situation. The more mature people in such circumstances therefore come to the conclusion that while they can’t control all their circumstances, they can prepare themselves for success.

A few examples of people I have worked with / observed / counseled in this regard. One smart rep who I mentored some years back recognized that there was an issue because while he knew his products well and was disciplined in his approach to sales, he was nevertheless losing deals more often than not. He was frustrated and took to blaming his managers for not approving deeper discounts and in some cases the customers for being too cautious or penny pinchers. Some well wishers including I gently pointed out that while selling, he was getting into products a little too soon and even when he started with the customer's problems before getting into the solution, his approach was a bit too academic. By that I mean he was not describing the issues in graphic detail that would not only relive the pain for the audience but also show the extent to which he had made efforts to understand the problem. When he was relating solutions, he was not personalizing the same for the people in the audience to tell them how they would be benefited by the solution. If you know how each person is going to be affected, connecting back to their pains when relating a solution makes for a powerful “Aha!” moment. Once he saw the point, he practiced connecting better to his audience and that reflected in his results. He is today one of the more successful reps I have seen.

A slightly different example is that of a pre-sales colleague who was brilliant with products and was a respected manager but somehow his impact on customers and internal sales teams was not too great. He used to do exactly what the role definition was and not involving himself outside his immediate job to help solve problems but often complained of people “not listening” to him. He used to work for me and I often had reason to counsel him on this point. It took some doing on his part to open up to me and a few others who gently pointed out to him that the problems he was stating were not unique to him, yet others were doing better than he was. Over time, he has come to understand that customers don't just look at technical wizardry but how someone stands by them when required and takes ownership to resolve issues. Since then, he has morphed into a star who takes ownership of situations and drives the right behavior from people around him to resolve customer problems even if they don't report to him. Customers and the sales people he works with know that he will invariably keep his commitments. In the process, he has not lost his technical edge. Far from it, but by adding a problem solving dimension he has created a personal brand for himself with the result that sales people from other regions often ask for his advice.

Another slightly different example pertains to a north Asian colleague I worked with some years ago who was also a technical wizard. After struggling with my Indian accented English and speed of talking for some months, we became great friends. He was very thorough, very passionate and a great leader for his team. However when it came to influencing sales leaders in his region, he struggled. For example, we wanted to sell a number of additional products that their sales team had hitherto ignored. There was money to be made if someone could make a convincing case to the sales management to push these solutions too. However, he was not getting anywhere. As I did not understand the local language, I could not really tell what the issue was. However one thing was obvious wheb on a few occasions he discussed with me what he was going to present to the sales leaders in this regard. He was getting very technical in explaining the benefits of the products. While salespeople do need to know how a solution will cater to their customers' needs, they also need to know how they can meet their targets by selling these solutions. I therefore shared some stats with him of how regions with lesser sophisticated markets saw reps make a killing thanks to these products and what they were doing differently. Armed with these inputs he changed tack by focusing on a few smart reps struggling in tough territories. He showed how their seemingly insurmountable targets could be reached by pushing these added products. He took the effort to show them which customers in their territories may need such a product and why. He taught them to ask the right questions and even offered to come cold calling with them. Once these reps saw that he had taken the effort to understand their situation, they beat a path to his door. The region went from being last in Asia in that product category to first in just 2 years thereafter.

What is common to these 3 examples? In all three cases, the person in the example was focusing on the message more than anything else believing that the strength of the message would get their deals / ideas through. This is a very common fallacy because in reality 9 times out of 10, the impression the seller creates with the buyer carries way more weight than the strength of what is being sold. Of course if the product / idea is terrible, seldom will personal credibility push it through (and good salespeople won’t usually burn their goodwill with such behavior). With that caveat out of the way, let us look at the examples to see what can be learned from them.

In the first example, the rep improved once he shifted his focus from the product to the customer’s problem. While that may seem obvious, in reality even otherwise smart people don’t realize that the buyer cares about a problem being solved. So if you can show that you have taken the effort to understand the problem in all its ramifications and are then able to show a clear path from the problem state to a vastly improved state thanks to what you are selling (personalizing the pain along the way for added impact), it makes you way more credible in the buyer’s eyes. Else you come across as uncaring or selfish.

In the second example, the presales expert was not bad at linking products to customer problems. His issue lay in a very narrow definition of his role which was seriously limiting his impact. Customers are often in tricky situations where they are running from pillar to post for help. At such times whoever steps up to help navigate the choppy waters for the customer ends up building huge credibility. My insurance agent is of that type. I have slowly migrated more and more of my investment portfolio to him though he is not a polished too clever by half MNC type rep (who the banks invariably send but for some exceptions) because when I had a major problem related to an investment that he had not even handled for me, he went out of his way to resolve it for me using his connections with the company in question. I now make investments besides insurance with him because he has earned my trust.

In the last example, the issue was of thinking style. My north Asian colleague was not as influential as he could be because he was not approaching the problem from a rep’s personal point of view. The reps needed someone to understand their situation and show them a clear path to meeting their targets and not just someone who could teach them technical selling (please see my earlier post on “How to Make an Impact in Every Business Conversation” where this case fits into the “Hierarchical Model”). Once he realized he was singing from the wrong hymn sheet, it was relatively easy to change the style to suit the listener and he was on his way.

All these examples come down to one thing. First sell yourself! Selling yourself is all about building credibility with the people who make decisions, be they customers or people in your own company or community or whatever. Once you do so, transferring that credibility to your group (your company / department / whatever) comes next. That is where you introduce other competent people to the customer (if it is a problem that can’t be solved by you alone) and use your credibility to open doors for them to build their own credibility. Lastly you talk about your product by which time your and your group’s credibility have done 70% of the selling for you.

Credibility is not something however that you build overnight. It takes a lot of time and effort. You need to be knowledgeable about what you are selling and who you are selling to. You need to take the time to do homework on them – who else has the same problems they have and how has your company helped them? What are some provocative points of view you can put across to them that will force them to see a trend others may be missing? You need to take the first step to offer to help someone (be it a customer or a peer or whoever) even if you don’t have to and then follow through on such a commitment. You could mentor sincere people who may one day become influential (Please see my earlier post on “Why Smart People Are Often Poor Coaches”). And yes, an effective communication style helps (please see my earlier post on “The Art of Story Telling”).

One point to note. This dictum of selling yourself first applies in any situation, be it a classical sales situation or an interview or when you are pushing a new idea within your own company or even in your personal life. The knowledge of what you are selling may not be transferrable if you change jobs but most of the other contributing factors of credibility are. So please do take the time to evaluate where you stand personal credibility wise and see what you can do to sell yourself. Start early because this takes time!