Transformational Selling and the Dovetail Effect.

???Key Takeaways:

- Selling a vision to your customers can be more effective than selling the superiority of your product.

- Understanding the aspirations and goals of your customers is crucial in developing a shared vision.

- Paint a picture of how your product can fulfill their aspirations and create a compelling story.

- Focus on what is important to each customer and address their specific needs and concerns.

- Prepare by researching your customers and asking probing questions to create a personalized vision.

- Move away from selling features, benefits, and price, and instead focus on fulfilling their exact needs.

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Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump can make you a better salesperson.? Here’s how.

(First a disclaimer) This is not a political post.? Who you voted for or plan to vote for in the next election cycle is a personal matter. ???Please read this post for what it is; observational learning at its best from two public figures, who ?continue to dominate news cycles and ?gave a master class in sales and leadership.?

Have you ever been in this scenario? You have to achieve a number at end of the quarter ?and thought to yourself that you could and would do what needed to be done, hit your number, ?and maybe for your efforts, win an award and be on stage…only to have a “sale” ?you were counting on fall through or go to a competitor??? It would be nice if customers always bought the best product from the best salesperson in the exact best ?time frame, but that is not reality.? As you are reflecting on your 2023 sales results and planning on how to achieve and exceed your number in 2024, the two aforementioned public figures in the news can be instructive in changing the way think about your product, how you approach customers, ?and help you be the best salesperson you can be.

In the Fall of 2016, in the thick of the Presidential campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I happened to be driving my truck through rural Illinois, far away from Chicago and highly dense population centers.?? Driving through small rural towns like New London, Hannibal, and Quincy (which collectively are deeply conservative towns) I realized I was witnessing a culture phenomenon. ??In nearly every back yard, mobile home, and farmhouse there was a Donald Trump sign. ???How could a former New York Democrat billionaire, who seemingly did not represent the culture, values, and priorities of rural America craft a message so compelling ?as to drive those traditional, conservative voters to support his campaign and ?proudly display their support to neighbors and strangers alike.?? Regardless of your thoughts on the candidate or his platform, the answer is simple: he executed a masterful sales campaign, despite the overwhelming obstacles ?he faced.?? His strategy can help you achieve your sales goals.

Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, had a sophisticated, well-funded, and professional campaign of her own.? If you believe qualifications and experience ?matter in a Presidential candidate, then there was really no comparison to be drawn between Trump and Clinton.?? Hillary Clinton, on paper, was perhaps the most qualified candidate for President in the recent history of the United States: eight years as Arkansas First Lady, eight years as U.S. First Lady, eight years as the junior Senator from New York, and four years as U.S. Secretary of State under President Obama; she had seen it all and done it all.?? Her credentials were impeccable, and she was pre-eminently qualified for the job of President.? On the surface, this really should have not been a serious contest at all; a first time, novice politician with well documented character flaws ?versus a lifelong, insider candidate that enjoyed the support of the mainstream press, the DC establishment, and the majority of the voters.

The difference between these two campaigns and how their respective sales strategies played out is ?fascinating, and instructive for all of us in sales.?? The difference in sales approaches was simple; Hillary sold herself and her experience as the clear and superior “product”.?? Trump sold a transformational vision to his potential voter; ?a vision that could only be realized with Trump as President.

How this presidential race played out, specifically the sales tactics used by both candidates, can help you be a better salesperson.? Ask yourself if you are selling a, product with features and benefits or developing a transformational vision for your ?customers that will fulfill their exact need?

My most successful sales were not about selling a product.?? They were all about understanding ?the personal and professional aspirations of ?customers and then painting a picture where our partnership made those aspirations a reality.?? I call it the Dovetail Effect, where you and your product, in partnership with your customer, deliver on the vision you have developed together.?? If you are successful at selling and implementing your shared vision, you may even see your customers build entire advertising programs around your technology; ?billboards, TV and radio commercials, and use of your product as a fund-raising tool that represents their entire institution.?

It’s early 2001 in Houston Texas and I am desperately trying to sell two hospitals, and their respective preeminent cardiac surgeons, a Da Vinci Surgical system.?? There were few installed systems, no credible reference sights that could influence my target surgeons and ?few if any ?peer reviewed articles to prove the clinical value of da Vinci? ?I was under maximum stress to sell both systems by the end of the quarter and I gave every ounce of effort to sell both systems.? What was important to me, in order, was: ?saving my job by selling two systems, ?creating a robotic market in Houston, and ?hitting my quota and getting a commission check to pay for my wife and soon to be born first child.? I believed in the potential of robotic surgery and I had a sense of urgency to start new programs and accelerate the business. ?I assumed what was important to me was important to them.? ?There were a few obstacles I had to overcome.? ?The Computer Motion sales rep had somehow found out who I was calling on and basically followed my every sales call.? He offered a much cheaper price, but ?offered a drastically inferior product.? I kept thinking, “Who in their right mind would want to buy the Zeus system?” ??I had the better product, the better organization, and all I needed was a yes!?? Every week I would travel from Dallas to Houston, ready to close the deal.? Clearly, or at least I thought, they could also see the importance of moving swiftly to start their MIS/Robotic ?Mitral Valve program as soon as possible.? Sadly, after two consecutive quarters of no sales, I realized ?this was not going to happen in my time frame. ???Neither hospital would move, my “clinical support” was supportive in theory, right up to the point where they had to sign off on the sale or even put their name on the project; the hospital administrators wondered why I was asking them when we could red line the contract when there was no organizational support and my boss was ready to pull the trigger, on me.?? I had sold every feature and every benefit, ?used every marketing tool available , but nothing moved the needle, and I can truly say I had no idea where I had gone wrong.?

?I took stock of every single activity I had done, each person I had called on, and identified any gaps in the process.?? If you are in the medical device field and have ever heard of, or used the X-Box, I developed that tool trying to understand this specific sale. (I named it before the X-Box game was introduced). ??I put every stake holder and sales activity on an excel spreadsheet and put an X besides the completed activities.? Sure enough? I finally found the true cause of the delay.?? I had done a fine job of selling the physicians, but I had neglected the VP of Nursing and OR supervisor, and the nursing staff in general.? ?They were concerned about cost and time, which are metrics they were professionally judged on and had killed the sale for months. ??I stopped selling my product and decided instead to start actively listening in order to understand what was important to each stakeholder.? I started over, asked questions that really got to the heart of what was important to each customer, and? I developed, with them, a vision.? Together we created a plan for ?the most technically advanced operating room in the Med Center, providing cutting edge cardiac care no one had? envisioned. ?Here is what our shared vision looked like: “Can you imagine how exciting it must have been to be a nurse working with Dr. Cooley when he pioneered heart transplant surgery?? We have the same opportunity with robotics, and we can build a program together that could have an amazing clinical impact.? You could be on the cutting edge of surgical innovation”.? ?Together we painted a picture of how this new program would work, how they would benefit personally and professionally, and what embracing a new, revolutionary product could and would do for patients, their hospital, physicians, and nurses. How important were those previously mentioned cost and time metrics?? They never came up.? I also didn’t discuss features or price, only what it would look like one year from that moment and asked how we could possibly achieve our shared vision if they did not have a robotics program.? I executed the same strategy at the hospital right across the street and we shipped both hospitals on the same truck and the start of the robotics era in Houston had begun.?

You can’t execute this strategy without deep preparation, without researching your customers and their organizations, and without asking great probing questions that will help you weave a compelling story.? A good litmus test is this: if you are selling features and benefits, the superiority of your product, the limits of your competition or the difference in price, you are selling like Hillary and selling what is important to you.?? Everything you say might be true, but it’s probably not that compelling to your customer.?? Everyone has goals and ambitions.? Find out what those are and sell a vision of realizing them and you will have entered into a great partnership.?? One cautionary note. If you use this strategy and then act like the initial sale was the end point you will have one-time, unhappy customers.?? ?Dedicate yourself and your organization to this partnership and give your best efforts to make your shared vision a reality.? You will be rewarded with personal and professional relationships and continued sales.? ?

As 2024 begins and you catch your beath after seeing your quota for the first time, take time to think of how you can partner with your customers in the new year.???? If you develop a personalized vision for each customer that includes you, your company’s products and all the amazing things you can accomplish together, I think you will create great relationships, find new customers to work with, have improved customer satisfaction and a pathway ?towards realizing your own aspirations and vision.??