Stop Selling and Start Solving: How to Be Seen as a Consultant Instead of Just a Salesperson

Sales has a bad rap. So much so that in a recent Linked In post, one contributor argued that networking is toxic, effectively because it’s too much like selling.

Huh?

I guess this guy has been hijacked by too many Amway presentations in his friends’ living rooms. So have I, but that doesn’t mean that selling is evil. Without sales, we have no business. Period. However, toxic sales practices- or sheer laziness- have left us with a bad impression.

Far too many of us are embarrassingly inept at it. Those toxic practices cost business a great deal of money, loyalty, and…sales.

I was the Director of Sales Training for the now-defunct Silo Corporation, which in its heyday was the biggest competitor for the also now-defunct Circuit City. I suppose that says something about business practices in the electronics industry. Based on my observation, it had far more to do with the people the local managers hired to be salespeople. To wit:

Endless hours training people how to sell with courtesy and respect, only to observe this memorable exchange:

“Man I fucked her but GOOD. She bought the largest big screen we had! I am making MAJOR MONEY off that stupid bitch.”

The woman in question was still inside the building, just about to head out the door to load said big screen. Well within earshot. She spun on her heels, face red with fury, and cancelled the sale. I wasn’t privy to the specifics of her conversation with the manager, but one can imagine.

The manager cancelled the kid’s employment shortly after she left.

That young man made the same mistake so many salespeople do: it’s not about you or your commission or your mortgage payment or your competitive sales standings in the office.

NOBODY CARES.

The ONLY thing clients care about is whether or not you’ve met a need or solved a problem they have.

For example, since I still shop in brick and mortar stores like Best Buy (and kindly, cars and devices and electronics share this in spades), I have to steel myself to be featured to death.

Some pimply-faced kid marches up to me in the aisle, I get a word out about what I might be in the market for and he starts lambasting me with a litany of line items I couldn’t care less about. Not only do I not understand what he’s saying, but I don’t rightly care. The technical terms are meaningless to me.

This is particularly true of Verizon stores. Like a lot of folks my vintage (mid-sixties) I do not use my phone for much. Calls, check emails. And while I sit for hours at the VA Center, I read on my Kindle app. Period. Done. The rest of it? Look, George Carlin once said that someone was likely to make a phone to percolate your coffee, feed the dog and scratch your scrotum for you.

Carlin may have been crass, but frankly he has a point. That’s probably a feature of the new $6000 Kohler toilet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8jCP_-oBgQ

Look, when you use elegant music to promote a piece of plumbing…well. Besides, what the heck is the dog going to do when you forget to fill the water bowl? Yes. Stupid products. But I digress.

Sales training has long, long emphasized the difference between features and benefits but the message simply doesn’t stick. Auto, electronic and millions of other employees receive training on all the bells and whistles of a new receiver, a big screen, a laptop or Chrome book. Or a new Audi or Beemer or the latest mattress model. Naturally manufacturers want their employees to know their products.

Excited, energized and eager to show off all that knowledge- knowledge that is meaningful to them but not to a large percentage of the population, they pop off this lengthy laundry list of brand new features as the poor potential client’s eyes glaze over.

Use Determines Fit

In so many cases, the most important thing that salesperson- any salesperson needs to do- is ask this very simple question:

How are you going to use it?

As someone who regularly does adventure travel, this is the most important question any salesperson can ask me about a big gear purchase.

Let’s say I am interested in a brand new sleeping bag. I’m willing to spend some significant dime- like, up to $500. That’s a serious investment in a piece of gear. It could potentially save my life in some of the places I go, but by the same token I don’t need one for Everest. Extreme expedition bags run close to $1200.00, by comparison.

I walk into gear store, say I’m interested in a new down bag. The salesperson leads me to the display of brightly-colored bags from Nemo to Northface. Then she launches into an unsolicited soliloquy of the features of each one. I’m bored to tears.

There’s a potential $450 buy here, but not this way.

If she had asked me how I was going to use it, here’s what I’d tell her:

• How often a year I use a bag
• The conditions- including cold, snow, rain- in which the bag is likely to be exposed to and for how long
• If I am traveling solo and overseas, which has a huge impact on how much weight I’m willing to carry in my luggage
• If I’m going solo or tandem, which means I can spread the gear weight across a few folks, not just in my gear bag
• What seasons I’ll be using it, and in what countries
• How cold I get, and in what parts of my body (I have Reynaud’s Syndrome, which means I sleep icy, even in heavier bags. Some women’s butts freeze, whereas others have the worst issues with their feet)
• If I plan to bring a liner, which can add up to 35 degrees additional heat, but is heavy
• What is most important: packability (volume), weight, warmth? In what order?
• The upper limit of what I want to spend, and any specific features I am interested in and why.

Here’s why this last point is so important: I may have read a story that interested me, but the product I was excited about didn’t fit how I would use it. This is the key to building trust. The self-interested salesperson will push me to buy the top-end, $1200 bag. Not what I need.

A consultant matches the product with my actual plan for use. The latter means I will come find that person over and over and over again.

Here’s the other part of the equation that simply doesn’t occur to so many sales folks: not all of us do our due diligence on the Internet. We really do want to be informed and educated. That’s a consultant’s job. If I have no knowledge of sleeping bags, then I want someone to ask me these questions and more to make me think hard in ways that hadn’t occurred to me. This is how we build brand loyalty.

You get the drift. At the end of all these questions which speak to how I am going to use this bag, she would likely point me to the Nemo Sonic. That is in fact, what I ended up with, especially since an upcoming expedition is going to be in the northern Rockies of British Columbia.

This bag is perfect, albeit heavy. However, for where I am going to be sleeping, for the high-altitude passes, I want that warmth.

Knowing your product is a fraction of the job.

Knowing how the client is going to use it is vastly more important. Matching the client to the right product, or in my case, the piece of gear, is what guarantees satisfaction. And, for my part, loyalty to the store.

Here’s what that looks like in real life. Last week I was at my local REI store here in Lakewood, Colorado. I spotted a bright turquoise North Face jacket on the clearance aisle. At $250, it was very pricey. It was a small, seemed to fit, but I was concerned about being constrained. It was a one-off. My favorite color, but I still didn’t know enough to pull the trigger.

I found one associate, who gushed about the jacket. Not helpful.

Then I spotted Travis. Travis is a charming, energetic, impish Korean-American man, one of two adopted kids into a Texas family. He is by far and away one of my favorite people at REI, not just for his personality but damn, the man is an expert. Travis knows how to ask, educate and engage his customers about what REI carries. He’s a walking encyclopedia because he uses the gear himself.

He led me to the mirror next to the shoes. I put the jacket on and he walked me through proper fit, what to look for on my hour-glass body, what would happen if there was too much air. Clarified how I was going to use it.

By the time we were done- just a few minutes in fact- I was sold. I have since fallen in love with this jacket in that way we all do with The Perfect Piece of Gear. I’m going to shred this sucker with wear. Like all truly good purchases, it was worth every single penny.

That’s matching the customer’s need with the right solution, not matching a sale with your need to make your car payment. Just in case I didn’t make that point clearly enough the first time: Nobody cares about your car payment but you.

Now let’s be fair: Travis doesn’t make a commission. But he does incite loyalty, and that makes him priceless to the company. He builds the brand.

Travis has repeatedly won awards at REI for this reason. On his green REI vest, he wears a button that says “In Training.” It’s a goof. He loves to tease customers, who are listening to him discuss products to match their needs with absolute authority. Then they see that button.

“They think to themselves, man, if this is what a trainee knows, I can’t wait to talk to a manager!” He laughs. In fact, managers aren’t in Travis’ league and he knows it.

Is this limited to just brick and mortar? Not at all. Just before I headed to Africa to climb Mt. Kenya, I realized that my backpack wasn’t going to work. I had very little time to track one down. Ultimately I went online, and called Backcountryedge.com. The woman who helped me was incredibly knowledgable, polite, patient, and thorough. Ultimately we found the precise pack with all the right bells and whistles. Again, perfect purchase. I’ll be back online with them again.

Research has long shown that we customers return where we had our last, best experience. That’s true of very pricey purchases as well as finding a simple baby shower gift. It’s also why online marketers include another catalogue, just in case you were supremely happy with what just arrived. Works, too.

One other very important element of why it’s so important to clarify how your customer is going to us an item is that customers are today faced with an overwhelming array of choices. In The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz, the author talks about what it’s like to buy a pair of jeans in today’s world. From stone washed to traditional Levis to pleated or unpleated to loose legs to tight fit, it’s endless. He was frustrated, as are we all, with too many options. YOU solve that problem by asking how are you going to wear them? Dress jeans? Work jeans? Impress your lady love? By the time you’re done asking, you’ve narrowed it down to two or three options. You’ve removed the anxiety and made it easy. You solved his problem, made a sale, and a friend.

The best salespeople don’t have to sell. In Miracle on 34th Street Santa Claus earned business and loyalty for Macy’s by sending folks where they could find what they needed-at times, not at Macy’s. The bosses were incensed. That is, until they heard those customers gushing about how they’d be back because of the great service. That’s what consultants do. They solve. And in the process, they sell.