Whose Success Are You Focused on?

If there’s one thing that sends salespeople down a path that always leads to failure, it’s placing their own success ahead of their customers. Even though most in sales understand how ineffective this is and wholeheartedly agree their customers’ needs are indeed paramount. It’s incredible how quickly that clarity and focus fades when the customer reveals one or two needs, or shares something the seller feels he/she has a solution for. Like a hungry bear ready to pounce on a juicy fresh water salmon, off they go sinking their teeth into their sales pitch!

Having said that it’s not always the salespersons fault. For a start customers have also learned some counterproductive behaviours when it comes to interacting with salespeople. Chief amongst them is asking sellers for solutions right off the bat, without sharing anything about what they're trying to achieve. And too many sellers gladly accept this invitation to wax lyrical about their awesome products and/or services, rather than to pause, ask more questions and put themselves in a position to provide relevant advice and guidance.

It’s also true that sellers often find themselves operating in an environment that covets the customer’s money, much more than it does the value the customer actually receives from spending it. So it’s not surprising when the scent of money is in the air, it’s almost too intoxicating for sellers operating with that mindset to resist.

If we add to the mix highly competitive, dog-eat-dog internal cultures that celebrate the achievements of top revenue generators, and incentive schemes that offer glittering rewards to “top performers” - seller mindsets and behaviours are once again negatively influenced. In this kind of environment sales meetings are not for the feint hearted either. Sellers are required to commit to the weekly/bi-weekly/monthly/quarterly sales they will close – and woe betide anyone that doesn’t deliver!

All this ego massaging combined with a generous portion of fear creates a heady mixture for sure. In response sellers look for shortcuts. They overstate where they think they are in the selling/buying cycle. Apply pressure to their customers in an attempt to push underdeveloped opportunities along too quickly. Pulling deals forward by offering discounts in order to make quota is also popular. Of course none of these practices are likely to cultivate the kind of compelling experiences that generate terrific value and allow long term customer relationships to flourish. In fact, they will do precisely the opposite!

I also want to highlight the roles branding and marketing play in this dysfunctional selling environment. Unfortunately, expertly cultivating brands designed to present a culture of customer centricity, building confidence and trust in the minds of prospective customers, all falls into a great big smelly pile of disappointment due to all the self-serving and outdated practices I mention above. The ongoing disconnect between the sales and marketing does little more than ensure customer experiences fall well short of matching that enticing brand promise. And round and round we go! It all adds up to a shocking waste of time and money, not to mention the lasting financial impact and loss of goodwill this brand damage has in the marketplace.

In my work helping leaders to transform sales cultures I’ve often referred to the wonderfully powerful empty chair philosophy made famous by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. For those of you that aren’t aware, during the early days at Amazon (and still today) Mr Bezos would bring an empty chair into their internal staff meetings to ensure?“the most important person in the room,”?- the customer, is always represented. That empty chair has the effect of ensuring that everyone remained fully aware of how their decisions impacted customers.

?“If there is one reason we have done better than our peers in the Internet space … it is because we have focused like a laser on customer experience.” Jeff Bezos

My message here is you can’t fake it. Just like Amazon, Disney, Ritz Carlton and other brands that have earned their customers respect and loyalty, you have to embed customer obsession in the very DNA of your organisation. If you fail to cultivate that level of belief, focus and commitment to your customer’s success at every level. No matter how much effort you might put into giving your brand a high gloss polish - it will quickly fade like a thin veneer of paint covering a rotten, rust infested car body. In today’s hyper-competitive, always on, connected world, we simply can’t have a disconnect between our words and actions if we want to build authentic, high trust, collaborative, long term relationships with our employees and our customers. And who doesn't want/need that in order to survive, let alone thrive? Every business right. So why does this continue to be an issue so many are struggling with?

The reality is business practices, cultures, mindsets and behaviours that are centred on making money for the salesperson and selling organisation are no longer appropriate, effective or relevant, if they ever were. Having said that, it’s certainly not only a sales issue. Overcoming these deeply embedded problems requires the courage to change at multiple levels. Although sales may well be the tip of the spear, at the very least we need to see leadership, human resources, marketing, talent management and sales all work together in seamless harmony in order to develop and implement strategies that focus like a laser on our customers and their success. There are simply no excuses!

Whose success are you focused on, really????

Image Credit: X Men Apocalypse Movie, 2016, Twentieth Century Fox