The secret to selling success in 2013 may be found in an ancient Latin phrase.
I was talking, a few days ago, with a friend of mine who asked me if I had any curriculum on “identifying buyer types.” He had worked with a philosophy before that placed buyers into four different “types” for the purposes of knowing how to sell to them. It was all part of the salesperson’s “game plan,” he said. Now,this guy has been very successful over the years. I respect him. But I can and do disagree, from time to time, with people I respect. This was one example.
I told my friend, “I have a very simple method of determining the number of buyer types that there are. Simply count up all the people, and then multiply by one.” I explained that my process is centered on dealing with people as INDIVIDUALS, not “types,” and that, for me, it has been more successful. This, however, led me into an internal dialogue about how much head-baggage salespeople can carry into a sales call. Canned presentations, fake rapport tactics, buyer identification tactics, and so forth, can really trash a call before it gets a chance to thrive. And I returned to a concept that I discuss in my book, Sell Like You Mean It! There are two words that most salespeople don’t know, and every salesperson should.
They are: Tabula Rasa. That’s a Latin phrase meaning “Blank slate,” and it’s the foundation of high school and college debate (which I participated and excelled in), as well as legal proceedings. It’s also the foundation of today’s successful selling. Stick with me. Essentially it means that the debate, proceeding, etc., begins with no presumption whatsoever, and that concepts and contentions become “fact” as they are stipulated to, proven, or agreed upon.
One of the key skills in debate – and law – is the ability to see and react to what is happening. That’s an essential skill of selling, too. Here’s how this manifests itself in selling.
When we walk into a sales call with highly structured presentations, manipulation techniques, and other strategies of the kind, we remove the individual characteristic from each sales call. Essentially, we treat one customer like the next – even though they aren’t. While a salesperson is trying to pigeonhole his buyer into one of four boxes, the customer is trying to express an individual need – and usually failing.
A tabula rasa approach is much better. With this approach, the salesperson has two objectives:
First, to learn about the buyer and the buyer’s individual needs and situation. Second, to improve the buyer’s condition through the sales call itself. The salesperson does so by lending his/her expertise to the buyer’s situation. What the salesperson recommends, presents, and proposes, is not preplanned – instead, it is the result of the questioning phase of the sales process. The salesperson reads and reacts.
Does that mean that the salesperson goes into a call and just wings it? Far from it. The salesperson has a game plan – but that plan consists of the questions he/she plans to ask. The rest of the call is dependent entirely upon the answers to those questions, and the needs expressed.
This sales call approach places burdens that are demanding and different upon the tabula rasasalesperson. Those burdens are completely in line with the changes in the selling world.
First, the salesperson must be an expert questioner. The ability to read off a list of questions and write down the answers doesn’t make you an expert. The salesperson who succeeds with this approach is the salesperson who can formulate excellent, deeply probing questions on the spot – with the pathway of the call determined by the answers.
Second, the salesperson must be an excellent listener. Most people say they are – few really are. This salesperson must be able to capture information and the information behind the answer – and then drill down appropriately.
Finally, the salesperson must be an agile thinker with the ability to craft presentations on the spot that speak directly to the buyer’s needs and situation. Further, the salesperson must be able to interpret the information given by the buyer and use that information to create the presentation.
This type of tabula rasa selling isn’t easy. In fact, it’s demanding as heck; much more demanding that memorizing lists of questions, presentation statements, and canning yourself up. But it’s incredibly rewarding, both in terms of the effectiveness of your sales calls and in terms of the fun you’ll have in selling.
