Keep Leading With Your Product, If...

In last week's message, I encouraged you to lead with the problem you solve, not the product you sell, and I have salespeople who push back on that all the time.

"Jeff, it's really simple. I call a bunch of people who I think have a problem I can solve, and I offer them the solution. Why do you need to make it more complicated than that? Why are we taking it sideways? Why are we going the long way around to get to the eventual result?"

I'm not for making things take any longer than they need to, and I'm all for simplicity, so don't get me wrong here. Just let me ask you a couple of questions.

• The people you're trying to call, do 40% of them want to speak to you, or are you stuck with the 5 to 10% that you're hoping are ready to buy now?
• When you do have those conversations with them initially, do half of them or more want to have another conversation with you? Or are you just stuck with the people who wanted to buy now because once you get them off the phone, you're probably never getting them back?
• The ones who do say they want a follow-up call or a next step with you: Do they mean it, or are they just saying that because that's the quickest way to get you off the phone? They know, and you know now, that you'll be chasing your tail trying to follow up for the next couple of weeks, holding on to some hope that they actually meant what they said.
• When you do need to follow up, do you have an anchor issue that you can bring everything back to? Do you have a reason for them to call you back, or are you just circling back and touching base? Nobody wants their base touched!
• When they object, do you have that same anchor to return to? Do you have that same issue so that the conversation can be about the value of solving the problem instead of the arbitrary value that they're going to assign to your solution? You know, the one that you've trained them to ask for a discount on in the first place. Making it about your product ties yourhands from the very beginning. You're stuck right out of the gate and you don't even realize it.
• But all that product knowledge has certainly helped you gain a really great reputation in your industry for being solutions-oriented and for being a resource, right? You're clearly someone who can be counted on when they need an opinion on something that really bothers them.
• When your prospects are looking for resources, they think of you as such a resource that even when they don't buy from you, they still refer you to their friends, right? Because I mean you're really successful where you're at. You couldn't possibly try another approach.
• Is it easy for you to have those wide-ranging, maybe direct-but-not-pointed, conversations with your prospects about what they could do to get to a better spot potentially?
• Are you feeling grimy or salesy ever?
• Do you ever feel like you have to do something that you don't really want to do, but "that's the way it's supposed to go?"

See, that's what you get when you lead with a product. You paint yourself into a corner, and you're forced to do things that make you feel out of your own integrity. Selling should be about maintaining your integrity. Selling should be about the alignment between who you are, what you sell, who you sell it to, how you sell it, and why.

When you lean on the product, you miss all the magic that comes with being the resource that helps people get what they need. You want that reputation, right, or don't you?

Do you want to hit your number this month or do you want to hit your number every month? That's the difference between these two approaches.

This is a hill I'm happy to die on, and I know it can help. If you've got questions, reach out, and I'll be happy to chat.

Until next week,

JB

I'm Jeff Bajorek.?Salespeople look to me to help them overcome mediocrity while selling with integrity. You never sell better than when you?#SellLikeYou.

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