October 15, 2024

Have you been a victim of a bad sales call?

It's not uncommon for my sales training clients, after a bit of training, to share their observations about bad sales interactions they have witnessed or been on the wrong end of. It's as if the scales have been removed, and they see what they used to be.?

If ya know, ya know. And you can't unsee it.?

I recently found myself on the wrong end of a sales call. I'll protect the names and circumstances to protect the guilty.?

I'm met in the lobby by an overly polite and overly friendly salesperson. He had a big, flashy smile on his face—it was fake. Behavioral experts tell us that when you fake a smile, you only engage your mouth—your "crow's feet" around the eyes don't wrinkle.?

He led me into some friendly chit-chat. Where are you from? Virginia? Oh, I grew up in Maryland, and he told me, in great length, about what it was like growing up near the Beltway.?Bad salespeople talk about themselves. If it's not relevant to the impending conversation, nobody cares. I sure didn't.?

Once we settled in, he started to talk. My goodness, did he talk. He went on about his product. Why it was great, why I'd love it, and why he loved it. Thirty minutes in, he never had so much as a pause. Now, I'm tracking it. Is he going to ask me any questions? Even one??Bad salespeople tell you about what they love about their product. They sell too soon. They talk too much. They act too salesy. He had hit the trifecta!

I don't think I said a single word.?

Next, he starts to flex his product knowledge. He goes to the whiteboard.?Oh no...please...not the whiteboard! He started putting up financial calculations and critical points, careful to drop some jargon so he'd know I knew he was smart.?He did ask, "Does that make sense?" I lied. "Yes, of course." I had no idea what he was talking about, but I sure wasn't going to tell him.?Bad salespeople use buzzwords and jargon. They think product knowledge is for "telling." He doesn't know it's for asking great questions.

Finally, I have to say something. How long are we going to do this??He never had any Up-Front Contract to address how long this would take, what the agendas were, and what possible outcomes were. Right now, I'm feeling trapped. I'm getting a little anxious and annoyed.?

I offer?an objection. He gets defensive and fires a zinger at me because "he was surprised I didn't know this...most people do. Let me explain it to you."?This guy is a peach. I wish I were filming this. I could use it as training content. He wanted me to feel dumb,?and he succeeded. I'm officially done. He doesn't know that when you make people feel "Not OK," they will want to separate from you.

We had an abrupt ending to the meeting. Not only did I not buy, but my opinion of his employer was much worse than when I walked through the door.?

Bad salespeople cost their organizations millions of dollars.

One-way selling is selling, but it's the lowest form of the craft. It's akin to bacteria. It's a living thing...but it's the lowest form of life.?

In telling this story, someone asked, "Did he ever ask what you do for a living?" ??

We should aim to do better. The world has too many bad salespeople.?

The Huddle?is a weekly newsletter that is designed for leaders. Leaders must be learners. There is never a?moment?when leaders arrive. It's a never-ending growth process. I hope this can be a resource that you can use to stay sharp and share with your team.

With that, here are some things I ran across this week.?

The Battle for Attention—I remember telephone booths, the Yellow Pages, bag phones, Blackberrys, and when you had to get up to change the channel.?I once thought that was one of the reasons parents had children.?

Many things that used to be are no longer. Though we aren't quite at the point of extinction, attention spans are an endangered resource.?

We used to watch movies with long scenes. Now, movies jump from shot to shot, making my head spin. Social media scrolling is more common now than reading books. Even more modern-day activities like watching a short video on YouTube seem to be falling out of favor, with 20-second reels taking over.?

We are losing our ability to focus, concentrate, and do deep work.?My bias is that it's only the younger people...but upon reflection, I wonder if it's all of us.?

It has implications for leaders. How do we have a 60-minute strategy session with our team with phones in the room? Should we have meeting content in snippets, changing every 7 minutes, so we can keep people engaged??

It's worth thinking about. Society is losing the battle, and it has implications for the workplace.?

When to Let a Team Member Go—One of the most difficult decisions a leader must make is when to fire someone. It goes against human nature to kick someone out of the community, yet at times, it must be done.?

As with most things, it helps if you have a map to help you navigate the journey. Mental models can help us think objectively and give us a framework for making hard decisions. They remove some of the emotion and help us do what needs to be done more easily.?

I teach my clients to take the dreaded step using this "math" equation. 10 x 10=100.?

The first ten represent the percentages of what you know. You heard Joe missed two meetings with customers and didn't put in for PTO that day your wife ran into him at the grocery store. You can bet you are getting about 10% of what's happening.

The "x 10" is the emotional energy you have wasted mulling over the decision. You have mulled it over, lost sleep, and gone back and forth countless times. Yet nothing changes.?

The =100 is the number of days ago you should have taken action. Someone once said, "Hire slow, fire fast." There is a lot of truth in that.?

If we are going to have a high-performing team, we need team members who are willing and able—or on the path to being willing and able. If they are unwilling or unable, they can't stay there. They must get on the path to progress, or we have to release them back to the workforce.?

I like this criteria for letting someone go. It's clear and gives a solid framework for making these very difficult decisions.?

Don't Let Mole Hills Turn Into Mountains -?Seth Godin has a brilliant way of writing very little...but making you think.?

In this short paragraph, he reminds us of the importance of caring for little things...before they become big things.?

Decrease Your Options and Study What You Don't Want—Do yourself a favor and watch?this graduation speech?from Matthew McConaughey. There are many great themes, but the one that stands out is "agency." We have agency. Will we exercise it??

A quote to leave you with

Have a great week!