Never make the mistake of thinking that you CONTROL your customers. You only INFLUENCE.
Did you ever suddenly think that you had missed a meeting, and in that meeting, the entire world decided to go nuts? I’ve been having a lot of moments like that lately. Between some sales writers trying to jump on the lead car of the technology train just to look relevant, and others saying that you should behave as if everyone is lying to you day in and day out, and articles appearing that suggest that our profession is dying, the sales world is getting weirder, folks.
Granted, some of this is my own fault. I’ve been doing a lot of research for my new book (more on that in coming months), and some of that research has taken me into some very strange places in our profession. But my real ‘reality check’ moment had to be reading Jeffrey Gitomer’s column this week. Now, I’m a Gitomer fan, but in my opinion, he’s giving some very bad advice lately. His newest nutshell: Stop carrying business cards and just link up with people on LinkedIn. I like LinkedIn, of course; in fact, I just arranged what could be an important meeting, and it wouldn’t have happened without LinkedIn. But there are limits, aren’t there?
In the column, to summarize, he met some salespeople, they exchanged some platitudes about survival in selling, and a Tweet resulted (very cutting edge). Then they started to exchange business cards, but one of the sales reps didn’t have cards and suggested that they simply link up. So they did, and all was wonderful, and hence the advice to stop carrying cards. Now, there are a couple of small problems:
- It takes a lot longer and a lot more trouble to connect on LinkedIn than to exchange business cards – particularly if you have a touchscreen ‘keyboard’ and a less than proficient finger typer. A lot of people won’t go through the trouble.
- Your network on LinkedIn should be selective. My rule of thumb is, “If I would take a call or a meeting with these people, or if they would take one from me, that’s a relationship worth Linking.” Granted, we live in an era of people having 1,000 virtual friends that they couldn’t pick out of a police lineup, but I still like my rule for business purposes.
The problem here is that technological tools have evolved, but people and human nature have not changed. Remember that technology isn’t a substitute for real selling, it’s a tool to achieve our ends.
Let’s move on to another thing that I read recently. It’s a book that forms the basis of a popular training system, and the system is underpinned by the philosophy that customers and prospects are lying to you, all the time, in order to get you to tell them what you know. So you shouldn’t trust them. Huh? How can we build trust and lasting relationships with customers unless we are unwilling to trust them? I’ve always found this particular system to be customer-unfriendly and manipulative, and if this is the foundation, it’s no surprise.
Here’s the common thread between the two: The advice put out by both Gitomer and by the other book presume that we can control the behavior of other people. Not carrying business cards and instead asking for a link is an expression of control; we are demanding that the other person take the time to link by phone, and in fact, we’re not considering the possibility that they might not WANT to link up based on a 5-minute meet and greet.
Similarly, the presumption that ‘buyers are liars’ presumes that we can then control their behavior by using techniques not based in trust. And this is why both are wrong – we cannot control the behavior of others. We only influence the behavior, and we do that by exhibiting the kind of behavior we expect from others. If we begin a sales call from a perspective of distrust, the buyer senses this, and mirrors that behavior. Now we have two people that don’t trust each other, and are exhibiting this obviously, and still attempting to transact business. How’s this going to work out well? Hint: It’s not.
When in doubt, seek to keep sales on an honest, fundamental dialogue, and your customers will thank you.
