If you want to hear trite answers at a cocktail party, just ask this question: “What business are you in?” You’ll get all kinds of meaningless answers. “I’m in the insurance business. I’m in the people business. I’m in the copier business.” I think that’s because people are conditioned a certain way. If you ask me, you’ll get this response: “I’m in the Troy Harrison business.” Some of you are thinking, “Sure, Troy, you’re self employed, you are your own business.” True – but if you want to succeed, you’re your own business, too.

Why do we externalize what we do? I think there are many reasons for it. One is that we think others will more easily identify with what we do if we refer to a product or service that we sell. But I think the biggest one is fear. We’re afraid of failure – and if we’re in someone else’s business, we have someone to blame for that failure. I see it all the time: “My industry isn’t doing well.” But if YOU are the business, who do you blame? Yourself and only yourself. That said, there are some very good reasons why you should BE the business, even if you work for someone else.

First of all, thinking about yourself as the business creates a different paradigm – you think about yourself, your career, and your work in an entirely different way. I’ll get to that in a moment. Second, you take complete and total ownership and responsibility for your own results (that’s the scary part). But third – if your business is successful, you never have to worry about your next appointment, your next sale, or even your next job.

First, however, you have to think of yourself differently. Here are the things you MUST have and define if you are the business:

1. What product or service do you sell? While, under this paradigm, the product is YOU, you need to drill down. What is it about you that makes you marketable? In my own instance, some of my marketing qualities include expertise in sales, the ability to teach, ability to capture, entertain, and educate an audience, and devastatingly good looks (at least that’s what I tell myself). What about you? Some of the aspects that would make a salesperson marketable include the ability to acquire and drive new business, great questioning ability, quantifiable relationship growth, etc. But you can’t be all things to all people – what is it about YOU that makes you uniquely marketable, both to your customers and your employers?
2. What is your marketing plan? Now that you’ve defined what it is that makes you marketable, how do you plan to communicate it? You’re reading a big component of my marketing plan. What do you do to constantly build and communicate your value? Do you spend time networking (face to face or online)? Do you publish articles? Do you blog? How do you review your market value with your employer, your customers, and your associates? You should constantly be figuring out how to build market value and visibility for yourself as a professional, as well as an advocate for your employer.
3. What’s your personal growth plan? Too many salespeople leave their personal growth up to chance. If their employer buys them a book, they’ll read it – maybe. If their employer pays for training, they’ll attend. And – if not, not. That’s because they think of themselves as a vessel for their employer’s business, not as a business unto themselves. Constant skill building is essential to survive and prosper in today’s sales training environment. “But my company won’t pay to train me,” they’ll say. Then do it yourself. I’ve been doing public speaking for over 30 years, and selling for over 25 – but I still spend significant time and money each year enhancing my own skill set. Why? Because that makes the product of my business better and better. Continual education and development will do the same for your business.
4. What’s your professional growth plan? I’m differentiating between PERSONAL growth (soft skills) and PROFESSIONAL growth (results). Would it surprise you to learn that I hold myself responsible for a sales quota each month? Or that I have a written business plan that includes my new prospects generated per month? Well, I do. Again, this is something that is more common with self employed than other-employed, but it shouldn’t be. Your boss will probably have a quota – but what is your own personal standard for income growth? Don’t let your boss drive your program – YOU drive your program.

The truth is that everyone – in sales, especially – should consider themselves to be self employed, and a business unto themselves. Try it. If you really embrace this concept, you’ll be more successful.

Of all the topics in sales, few are as talked-about as pricing and negotiation. Yet, with all that talk, few businesspeople are truly happy with the price points they are getting. Why?

The problem is that we’re our own worst enemies. We don’t really understand price, or what happens in a customer’s mind when price is quoted. This is a problem because sales is a sport that’s played inside the customer’s head. And if you can’t even find the arena, the chances are that you’re not going to win the game.

When you find out that the customer has been quoted a lower price than yours, what is your first thought? Perhaps that you have to ‘justify’ your higher price? Maybe you’re right….but not that often. The truth is that when the customer receives multiple quotes, one of which is significantly lower, the low price provider must justify his quality. This flips conventional thinking on its head, but it’s true. The presumption of quality always goes to the higher price.

Think about the last time that you went to buy, say, a suit. You looked at several suits, and the price points might have ranged anywhere from $400 to $1500. Which suits did you presume were of higher quality? The $1500 suit, right? But, let’s suppose you could only afford, or were only willing to buy, a $600 suit. Knowing that the $1500 suit was of the top quality, your mental processes shift. Now what you’re really wanting to know is how much of the $1500 suit’s quality can be found in the $600 suit.

It works the same way with any item. The higher price product or service gets to set the standard of quality in the customer’s mind. From that point forward, the only question is whether the customer’s perception of value for dollar is better with the lowest price product. That means that salespeople who sell higher-priced products should be proud of their price, not defensive. Of course, that’s the opposite of the way most salespeople sell – most salespeople are scared to death of their price.

Words and phrases that salespeople (in any industry) use to try to get business, but end up cutting their own throats:

• “I can save you money on…”
• “I’ll give you the best deal around…”
• “Can I bid on your business?”
• “I want the last shot at the price…”
• “If you find a lower price, call me…”

If you use any of these words or phrases, you are doing nothing more than asking the customer for permission to cut your price! In fact, you are telling them that the price you’ve just given doesn’t mean anything, and if they keep hammering on you, they can get a lower price. Why?

Because we are scared to death of losing the business. All these words and phrases are a defensive strategy. We’re afraid that our competitors will out-sell or out-price us, so we’re going to set up a safety net for us. We won’t lose an order on price, right? Wrong.

When you promise to save your customer money (or other nonsense), you always fulfill your promise. Rarely, however, do you get the business. Salespeople believe that they can “win” business by being cheaper. It’s a lazy way to sell, because all you have to do is make a stroke of a pen. The trouble is that, when you give a customer your “bottom” price, they still end up doing business with the person that they liked the best and who showed them the best offering – whether that was you or not.

In any selling process, there is a moment in time where the customer is ready to buy, and excited to buy. We need to take advantage of that moment in time. Here’s How!

Don’t say stupid stuff. Remember those phrases we talked about earlier? Don’t use ‘em.

Above all, never say the word “bid.” The word “bid” always implies multiple sources, and lowest-price-wins. It also implies delaying the buying decision until all the bids are in. Instead, offer proposals.

Keep it simple. The more whiz-bangs, colored lights, and brass bands you put into your proposal, the more the customer worries about being overpriced.

Standardize your pricing as much as possible. The best is the advertising rate card – “buy more, pay less.”

Make sure to focus on what the customer wants. Another characteristic of “bid” selling is that the salesperson goes right past the earlier parts of selling, and right to the pricing part.

Don’t start with an unrealistic price. When you start out with an artificially high price (such as the new car sticker price), you invite price negotiation. This is when both customer and salesperson are motivated by fear, and it removes all selling momentum.

When the customer asks, “how much,” answer them. For some reason, salespeople are scared to death of that question. Don’t be. The more words you use between “how much” and “this much,” the lower the expectations of the customer. That’s because they know you’re scared of your price.

The best, all-time greatest, way to hold your price is: Don’t be afraid to walk away from the deal. If you “have to have this business,” the customer has the advantage. If, on the other hand, you don’t “have to have” the business, you have the advantage.

If you are afraid of your price, your customers will know it, and they will take advantage of it.

I had a really powerful conversation with a friend of mine a few days ago. He’d just left his position of several years, managing a sales force selling to (through) independent distributors both small and medium sized. He’d done a nice job. His division had posted good growth, and he’d been recognized by his company. Yet, when I asked him why he left, he had an answer that amazed me.

“I left because I got frustrated. Only ten percent of the people I was dealing with are even relevant in today’s market, and ninety percent not only aren’t relevant, they don’t want to be.” Wow. That’s a huge statement. Not ‘productive’ or ‘growing,’ but ‘relevant.’ When I pressed him for more details, he explained that entirely too many people in his business are doing business the same way as they did 25 or even 50 years ago, and acting like the changes in the business world haven’t even happened. That, of course, put me in mind of our profession of selling – and made me wonder how relevant many of us are, or will be. But what does “relevant” mean?

Merriam-Webster defines “relevant” as: “Having significant or demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand.” That’s an interesting definition, isn’t it? If “the matter at hand” is the process of your customers accessing the goods and services that they need, and making profitable buying decisions, do you truly “Have significant or demonstrable bearing” on that? For too many salespeople, the answer is “no.” Don’t believe me? Think about the last sale you LOST. Why did you lose it? Give me an answer like “price,” or “perceived benefits,” or something of that nature, and you’ve just said that you were irrelevant in that process. Interesting little word, isn’t it?

What if “the matter at hand” is your company’s growth and profitability? Does the meaning of “relevant” change then? If you have “significant or demonstrable bearing” on your company’s growth and profitability, that means that YOU are a generator of new business, a retainer of current business, and a good developer of current accounts into higher profitability. Does that fit?

Or, going back to my friend – if “the matter at hand” is your place in your industry, are you taking the proper actions to stay current and involved, or are you simply riding the train until the track ends?

“Relevant” is actually a powerful word, isn’t it? One of the things we know is that in this day and age, being relevant means staying current and staying on top of the changes affecting our profession. For instance, I sold industrial supplies in the mid-90s. Back then there was no Internet, and to access the goods and services that they needed, my customers had to buy from me or from a competitive salesperson. I had “significand or demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand” simply by taking customer orders and making sure that their bearings and chains got to them when they needed them.

But what about now? I think about myself in that same job, but in today’s environment – and I know that those same customers could just as easily hop on the computer (or smartphone), plug in the part numbers that they needed on my company’s online ordering system, and the parts they needed would get there without my help at all. Therefore, my offering to take an order would be neither significant nor demonstably bearing on their ability to get their parts.

So, how could I – again, if I were in that job now – be relevant? I’d have to up my game. Instead of worrying about orders, I’d have to focus on providing benefits to my customers by asking lots of questions to keep my customer knowledge current and then keeping them abreast of technological developments, spotting best practices, and finding other ways that they could run their machines more efficiently. That would also keep me relevant to my company because the result would be happier customers, more referrals, a better reputation, more growth within my customer base, and a better platform to acquire new customers.

One of the key battles in today’s quickly changing and Internet driven business environment is just this – to be relevant. If you want to stay relevant, here are five quick steps to doing that.

1. Recognize that what got you here might not get you there. It’s an issue I see all the time – company owners and salespeople are married to ‘the way we’ve always done it,’ even when the ground is eroding around them.
2. Constantly update your knowledge. You should be aware of the resources available to you and your customers, not only through you, but through your competitors. Your customer is constantly updating his knowledge, and if you’re falling behind, he’ll know it before you do.
3. Make good decisions. Not all new technology is good or profitable technology. You have to expose yourself to as many new ideas as possible and then make good decisions about what to implement.
4. Commit to personal and professional growth. This might have been #1. Without a commitment to keep growing, both in terms of numbers and in terms of personal capabilities, you’re basically sticking your fingers in your ears and saying, “La, la, la” to avoid hearing the noise around you.
5. Staying relevant is costly, both in terms of time and treasure, but falling behind is even more costly. The difference is this: When you stay relevant and invest, you know when, where, and what the costs are. When you fall behind, you don’t even know the bill is being racked up until it’s time to pay.

Staying relevant is neither easy nor cheap. In fact, it can get really difficult sometimes because you have to swallow your pride. Unless you do, however, your place in the business world might go away without you knowing it.

“Troy, I need to diversify.” It’s one of the most common comments I hear from a client, or even just someone that I’m chatting with. Everyone is looking to grow their business, and one of the most common ways to do it is to think about adding new products, new services, and new markets. I’m not immune, either. I am constantly thinking of new ways to offer value to you (or to other customers).

The trouble is that the road to diversification is paved with potholes – which, I suppose, means that it’s paved by whoever does the street my office is on in Kansas City. Diversification sounds great – limited sales effort, incremental investment, and a big win in revenue. Many times, however, it doesn’t work out that way, and if you want to diversify the right way, there are some things you need to be aware of.

When you start thinking about diversifying, there are a few key questions that you need to ask yourself:

1. Can the new product be sold through your existing relationships? This might be the most important factor in diversifying. Typically, the idea behind diversifying is horizontal integration; the idea that you can sell more products and/or services to existing customers (thus a lower cost of sales). That can work – IF you are selling into your current contacts. On the other hand, if you have to forge new contacts, that lower cost of sales can quickly go away.

   One example that I’ve seen in several cases is companies that sell office supplies and decide to diversify into promotional products. It sounds appealing. Both are incremental sales with a strong recurring revenue potential. The problem was that the sales processes go through two different departments. Office supplies are typically sold to a CFO or Office Manager; promotional products are usually sold through the marketing department – and all their current contacts could provide was an introduction. Some were able to succeed. Most weren’t.

2. What new infrastructure do you need to be able to service the customers? Any time you bring in new products, you need a new infrastructure or part of one. The biggest question is – what level of infrastructure do you need? Some companies – Grainger comes to mind – simply build a business model around moving boxes from one place to another, and what’s in the boxes isn’t overly critical (according to a quote from the president of Grainger that I read years ago). In that environment, the incremental cost of new products is very low.

   For most of us, that isn’t the case. Your company is probably set up with one specific service and delivery model, and the critical question is to understand what modifications will be needed (new personnel, space, processes, equipment) to service the new product. This seems obvious, but you should figure out ahead of time what it’s going to take. More importantly, figure out what pace you can use to add the new resources. You probably don’t need to add everything at first; you can sell ahead of the infrastructure to a certain degree.

3. How does the new product fit with your current sales and service culture? Some sales environments require more hand-holding than others. The key to understand is – how much hand-holding and service is required for the new products? This is one of those issues that seems to have an easy solution but doesn’t. If you have a high service model, your customers are going to expect that model even if you add a low service product. On the other hand, if you have a low service model, your new product had better be a low service product – or you won’t be able to meet customer expectations.
4. What’s the competitive landscape? Again, this seems to be obvious – but based on what I’ve seen in the world, it’s not. If you’re diversifying, are you moving into a stronger or weaker competitive landscape? Sometimes companies have a knack for jumping out of a frying pan into the fire, and walking into a tougher competitive situation.
5. How good is your sales force? I’m putting this last on the list, but it should be one of the first considerations. Sometimes the urge to horizontally integrate is driven by a low performing sales force; the idea is that if the current sales force isn’t good at getting new customers, maybe they can at least sell more stuff to current customers.

   The trouble with this idea is that a sales force that isn’t good at getting new customers usually isn’t that good at executing in other phases of the sales game, as well – so the result is that you free the sales force from trying to get new accounts in favor of focusing on more sales to current customers, and you get neither. Horizontal integration isn’t a solution or a sidestep for a weak sales force.

Diversifying can be a great way to build your business, but you have to have your act together first; it’s not an answer for nonperformance in other parts of your business.

This is an answer to a question that I get asked every now and then. “Troy, how do you get and stay productive?” I’ll be honest enough to say that my own productivity system has been a work in progress for most of my career, and it will continue to be so (I’m always learning). Some of the techniques have come from reading, most from practice, and many from my passion for building race cars and hot rods.

Yes, I said race cars and hot rods. It’s a hobby that has taught me a lot over the years about problem solving and work habits. There’s no such book as ‘Seven Habits of Highly Productive Gearheads,’ but if there were, some of the habits below might be in it.

Game-plan every day: This seems obvious – but many people don’t do it, and in fact, I didn’t do it for many years. Every day has a game plan for me. The obvious components of the plan are ‘live’ activities – appointments, speaking engagements, and the like – but I always have some phone calls to make, some tasks, and some work on at least one long-term project. I also plan in my personal projects (I still work on cars and motorcycles) and my workout time. Rigid? Yes. But planning all this is what gives me time for family, believe it or not.

Write it down: OK, call me a Luddite if you wish, but my game plan is always written down with a pen on real paper in a real (inexpensive) planner book. I’ve tried using the task management components of Outlook (I use Outlook for my contacts and appointments), but I find that it’s too easy – at least for me – to simply put a new date on an old task. Writing implies permanence and commitment (which are also reasons that handwritten thank-you notes are particularly effective, but that’s a different story). I like CRM and use it – but there’s still a place in my world for a pen and paper.

Make appointments with yourself: My phone calls are programmed into my day, including the time slot that I’ll be making them. Particularly for telephone prospectors, it’s vital that you block time into your schedule – ESPECIALLY for those parts of your job that you don’t love. If you don’t, it’s too easy to slide them off.

Checklists are great: I like lists. I like them a lot because they keep me focused. Admittedly my use of the word ‘checklist’ is a bit loose, since I’m a crosser-offer instead of a checker, but you get the idea. Again, this is a benefit of writing things down instead of using Outlook. For me there’s a satisfaction involved with taking a pen and crossing an item off my list.

Touch big projects every day: This is one that I learned from racing and hot rodding. Sometimes a car build can stretch out over years, and if you lose momentum on one….well, Craigslist is full of aborted projects being sold at a heavy discount. You lose momentum by taking one day off, then another, then another…..and soon your project is gathering dust and you can’t remember where you left off. When I’m working on a car, I touch it every day, even if it’s just to change a light bulb or do a little sanding on a fender. When I do this, I never lose momentum and I never lose track. This method has segued over to business projects, as well. To write “Sell Like You Mean It!,” I spent an hour every day working on the manuscript for six months. I’ve used the same method to write my new book, which you’ll be hearing more about soon.

Work ahead: If you’re making calls today for appointments tomorrow, you’re already sunk. Don’t be that guy or gal. Instead, work well ahead. This article was written two weeks before I posted it. Why? Because I was inspired, and my own history tells me that when I get inspired to write an article, I’d better go ahead and write it, even though I might have a couple of articles ahead of it in line.

Stop when you have to: One of the things that I’ve learned through painful experience with my cars is that, sometimes, it’s best to stop in the middle of a task or project if you’re thrown a curveball, and reapproach it with fresh eyes later. A couple of months ago it was late in the evening and I was installing a part on my bike, and I was determined to get it done that night. The problem was that a bolt hole wasn’t lining up and I was starting to cross-thread a bolt. Now, intellectually, I know that this is bad and that I should stop – but I didn’t. Instead I turned the ratchet harder (perhaps hoping that the bolt gods would smile upon me and magically make the bolt line up), and messed up the threads. At least now I stopped. The next day, I got a tap, recut the thread on the motorcycle frame, and as I was doing it, an easy method for making the parts line up popped into my head. Ten minutes later it was done. I could have saved myself quite a bit of time if I’d stopped when things started to go bad.

Find your idea time: We all have times during the day when our mind is unfettered and is likely to give us great (and, honestly, sometimes not so great) ideas. For me, that’s the last hour before bed. I need to keep my mind unoccupied with important tasks (so, no business work during that time), and I need to keep my planner handy so I can capture those ideas. What do I do during that time? I watch TV, I read something unrelated to business…..but I am ready to grab a good idea when it hits me. Find yours and use it.

Keep a diary: Okay, okay….if you prefer to call it a ‘journal,’ go right ahead. I suppose that’s more manly. On the other hand, George Patton called his a ‘diary,’ so I think I’m OK on that count. At the end of every day, I write a little summary of the day in the same planner book that I use to plan my day. I do this for two reasons: First, I want to see if I accomplished my mission for the day. Second, sometimes the big success of the day wasn’t planned, and I like to keep track of positives. I do this because it makes me my own accountability partner. I never want to write “pretty pointless day,” so I strive to make it a day that advances me somehow.

There’s one other aspect that I didn’t mention, because it’s highly individualized. Do what works for you. You don’t have to use all my nine steps; heck, you don’t have to use any of them if you have a system that really works for you. But you should have a system and you should faithfully execute it, day in and day out. Until I did, I often had days where I sat in the evening wondering where the day went and why it didn’t produce a result.

We used to think it was good news. “Hey, I got a call-in!,” we’d say excitedly to our boss/co-workers, and we’d eagerly schedule the appointment. And why not? After putting in hours of prospecting each week to set our appointments, a decent call-in felt like pennies from heaven. They didn’t all result in a sale, but they were a higher percentage than prospected opportunities.

Nowadays, however, call-ins sometimes produce more fear in salespeople than prospecting, and this is due to an oft-quoted statistic that “these days, 57% of the buyer’s process is done before they ever call you.” The stat comes from a survey of 1,400 B2B purchasing executives, and was conducted by a company who markets a ‘radical new sales approach’ – so it might be just a tad bit skewed. Still, I think we can agree that when a customer calls you, at least some of their buying process has been done without you – and in today’s internet driven environment, more of that process might have been completed than in yesteryear. So, as salespeople, what do we do to succeed in this environment?

Before we dive into this, let’s review the customer’s buying process for a moment:

Motivation: Something prompts the customer to realize that they have an unmet need that could be met by making a purchase.

Investigation: The needs are defined and product/service solutions are measured against the needs.

Evaluation: Price and terms are defined and measured for value, affordability, and timeliness.

Decision: The customer buys or doesn’t.

In most B2B environments, the call-in used to come after the Motivation step, which left us free to complete the biggest parts of the buying process. The bad news today is that, with product and service information so readily available via the Internet, your customer has probably completed all or part of the Investigation and perhaps the Evaluation steps. The good news is that you’re still part of the process.

This, however, is the moment that too many salespeople lose the sale. They do so by going to one of two extremes. Either they assume that the customer has done no research and treat the customers as unintelligent, or they expect tha the customer has done all their own research and attempt to move the process forward faster than the customer wants to. In both cases the customer is annoyed and likely buys elsewhere. Here’s what you must do when the customer approaches you:

Find out what parts of the process the customer has completed. This isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Simple questions like, “What research have you done so for,” or even “how did you find us,” can get you a long way toward a common understanding with your customer. They show that you respect the customer’s intelligence and are willing to move forward with the customer and not against the customer.

Find out what gaps exist in the customer’s knowledge. By “gaps,” I mean that in many cases, the customer thinks that they have completed knowledge in a particular topic area, but thye have not. This isn’t uncommon, especially when the research is Internet driven. Understanding what the customer knows and what the customer doesn’t know is improtant. It’s also important to be diplomatic when filling these gaps.

Find out what the customer knows that is wrong.   If it’s on the Internet, it has to be true, right? I’m laughing right now. As you probably know, there’s a site called “Snopes.com” that exists to debunk urban legends. Sometimes I think we need a “Sales Snopes” to debunk false claims in selling. This is where your diplomatic skills really come into play, because the customer may be married to a piece of knowledge that is incorrect.

Pick your battles carefully. If there are gaps, or if the customer has an incorrect piece of knowledge, you have to quickly assess for yourself how important these issues are. For instance, if the customer has discovered a ‘fact’ on the Internet that isn’t a fact, BUT is inconsequential to the customer getting the result that they want and is inconsequential to the sale you need to make, you may want to let it go. There’s no need to provoke a contest that doesn’t matter in the end result.

Be efficient with the customer’s time. Your customer has done their own research in an effort to be efficient and effective with their time. When you cover ground that your customer has already covered on their own, you become repetitive and the customer gets bored. Remember, Comfortable Customers Buy. Bored customers aren’t comfortable. Simply pick up from where your customer left off.

Never be afraid of your customer. Fear is the enemy of all good things in selling. Few things can be scarier to some salesperson than an educated customer. Your customer hasn’t educated themselves in an effort to be your opponent – they simply want a higher level of participation in the buying process. Allow them that, and you’re going to win.

By the way, while call-ins will happen, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be expending significant efforts on a good prospecting effort. The earlier you get your customer, the better. If the customer sees YOU as a reference instead of the Internet, you’re going to be in great shape.

Last week, I answered a “Hot Question” about customers who make ‘wrong’ decisions. After considerable thought – and the realization that I am one of those customers who frequently makes ‘wrong’ decisions – I decided that the question deserved a full article.

To refresh your memory, here’s the question, which I edited down a bit for space: “Troy, I have a situation that is a bit unique. I’m an optometrist. Many of my customers come to me with a fairly large amount of spending capability on their health plans, but instead of spending all of it on a quality pair of glasses, they’ll instead buy the cheapest Chinese stuff available to them.  How can I get them to make a good decision with their money?” The questioner further elaborated that the customers would come in with a spending capability of up to $400 – enough to buy a quality pair of glasses from him – but instead would buy the cheap “3 for $99” deals you see on TV, leaving both quality and free money on the table.

On the face of it, that would seem like a very bad decision. Even I would agree with that. However, there’s a lot that we don’t know. To solve this problem, however, you have to understand one key facet of selling in the 21^st Century: Customers don’t make “bad” decisions. They make the decision that is right for them at the time. Let’s talk more about this.

Our optometrist is making one of the most common mistakes in sales: He’s viewing the customer’s decision through his own criteria for a successful purchase, not the customer’s. When you’re selling, the only criteria that matters is the customer’s. That means that we have to understand what the customer’s decision making criteria is, and then sell to that, not our own. Before I break down how to do this, let’s talk about another example of “bad” decision making.

A couple of days ago, I visited one of my favorite retail establishments: Barnes and Noble. I’m a book nerd (no, really, I am, I say to all of you, who are probably nodding right now). I love bookstores, both new and used, and I hit the magazine rack at B&N at least once a week. Barnes and Noble is really hardcore on their discount program. You buy a ‘membership’ for $25 annually and you get 10% off all products, and bigger discounts on best sellers. At least that’s how I understand it. As a loyal B&N customer, you’d think I’d have one of these, wouldn’t you?

I don’t.

I have two reasons for not having one. First is that in some things I stand on principle. I refuse to purchase a ‘discount.’ If B&N would like to reward me for being a frequent customer, they may do so (Borders used to without a fee), but I’m not going to pay for the privilege.

Second, I hate to carry discount cards. I’m a man. That means that I carry my wallet in my hip pocket, and the thinner it is, the more comfortable I am. Hence I don’t carry discount cards. Yes, they could look me up through my phone number, but then I’m back to paying. With what I spend at B&N, the card might save me $75-100 annually. It’s not worth it.

But I know that when I go to the cash register, I’m going to be asked if I have the card. I reply with a firm but polite “no.” Then I’m asked if I want to hear about it. I reply “no” again. At this point, if I’m lucky, the clerk will respect my wishes and ring me up. If not, the clerk might start by saying, “But, you would save $2 on this purchase…” or whatever. At that point, I get annoyed and ask if it’s OK for me to purchase magazines there. The clerk looks at me as if I’m stupid. Clearly I’m making the “wrong” decision. The trouble is that the clerk doesn’t know my criteria.

The optometrist is in the same situation. He’s looking at the value proposition through his own eyes and not the customer’s – but the customer is the one who will buy. The value proposition always makes sense to the salesperson. So, why in the world could a customer prefer cheap, badly made (he’s assuming) glasses in quantity over one high quality and more attractive pair of glasses, especially when there’s no cost to the customer?

There are reasons, much like my reasons for not getting a discount card. Perhaps the customer seldom wears glasses, but wants a pair in multiple locations (I have sunglass shades for my glasses, and I have multiple ones so I can have a sunglass in each car, for instance). Hence, quantity becomes more important than quality. Perhaps the customer doesn’t understand their own buying power. Or maybe they want multiple pairs of glasses with different “looks.”

The problem is that, usually, we don’t try to understand the customer’s criteria for the decision – instead we try to ‘educate’ the customer on the ‘right’ decision. That seldom works. It seldom works because WE say it, and it’s a transparent effort to ‘push’ things that the customer doesn’t want. There’s a better approach.

Ask, don’t tell. The customer’s words are always more powerful than yours; the key is to tease out of the customer what their criteria is, and ask questions that influence the conversation. Let’s take a look at our optometrist again, and how he might work questions into the conversation. Questions like:

“How often do you actually wear glasses?”

(If they don’t wear them all the time): “Do you carry them with you all the time?”

“What kind of impression do you want your appearance to make?”

“How important is it to you to be able to have different looks?”

At the very least, these questions would tell the optometrist if the customer is a good candidate to ‘upsell’ into better frames; at the most, there might be lead-ins to good selling.

So, if you want to succeed in this situation, you have to set up the criteria early, BEFORE you present. Here are the steps involved:

• Respect your buyer’s intelligence. Your customers (usually) aren’t stupid, so don’t treat them like they are.
• Be open to other viewpoints. This goes along with the previous step, but realizing that buyers have their own worldviews is vital.
• Set up the criteria by asking, not telling. Your customer’s words are the most important ones; ask good questions early in the process before you work toward a presentation.
• Ask “what if” questions to address or shift the customer’s criteria. The two most powerful questions in sales are “what if.” Use those words to your advantage by painting an advantageous situation.
• Find a way to solve the customer’s problem, not yours. The key to winning the sale is to get the customer’s agreement that your solution can solve their problem within their own criteria.
• Don’t argue. When you go down the road of believing that the customer’s criteria is ‘wrong,’ you’ve lost the sale. If you can’t get agreement on the criteria, it might be a better strategy to back off and preserve the relationship.
• Respect the customer. Remember, the customer is buying SOMETHING from you (in the case of the optometrist, it’s an exam). You don’t want to make the process so unpleasant by trying to upsell that they avoid you entirely.

Like anything else in sales, this won’t work all the time. NOTHING works all the time. This, however, will give you the best shot at succeeding when you think the customer might be “wrong.”

One of the things I’ve always prided myself in is that I am a student of those activities about which I am passionate. When I get involved in something and I get excited about it, I dedicate myself to learning as much as I can about that activity. It’s been the pattern of my life. When I was in the debate program in high school and college, I ate and slept debate (well, at least with the energy that didn’t go into chasing girls – I was a teenager, after all). I’ve been a student of cars and racing all my life (which has led to me being virtually invincible in games of NASCAR Trivial Pursuit).

More to the point, I’m a student of the three disciplines that make up my career (and are the reason you’re reading this): sales, professional speaking, and training. I’m amazed at how often there is crossover between the disciplines; when I learn something from one discipline, it often bleeds into another. Such is the case with this week’s article. A concept that I learned long ago in speaking has really crystallized a way that salespeople can become much more effective than they currently are, and it’s all summed up by three little words.

Those words are: “Do, Think, or Feel.”

When creating a speech, professional speakers always ask themselves, “After this speech, what do I want my audience to Do, Think, or Feel?”

That’s a pretty good question, isn’t it? What if part of your pre-call planning included those words? “On my next call, what do I want my customer to do, think, or feel?” The answer sounds obvious, of course. “I want them to buy!” But many times, and on many calls, that’s not realistic. Yes, some of you sell in an environment where it’s completely realistic to think that your customer can buy on the first, and every, call. Some of you, however, sell in environments where your sale is one of incremetal steps.

“Do, Think, Feel” can make a huge difference in these multi-step environment, and here’s why. It’s customer-focused; your attention is on what the customer does, not what you do. That’s vital. Too many sales processes get extended beyond the point of any viability because the salesperson continues to move things “forward” unilaterally when the buyer isn’t motivated to buy. I call that “pushing a rope uphill.” It’s a huge waste of time, and “Do, Think, Feel” can help you get away from that.

Try this as a way of definining your call objective (and keep in mind, every call should have an objective, or a reason for being – if not, it’s not a good use of your customer’s time or yours):

What do you want your customer or prospect to DO? “Do” always specifies an action, and the question asks what the customer will do, not you. Depending on where you are in the sales process, there could be many actions that the customer takes. They might:

• Set a next appointment.
• Gather data for your next conversation.
• Entertain a proposal.
• Give a referral.
• Make an introduction.
• Or, some other definitive action that advances the sales process or the relationship.

You might want your prospect to THINK something different after your meeting. This can be early or late in a relationship, and it usually involves a change in perception. For instance, your customer might:

• Accept you as a brand leader.
• Gain respect for you.
• Qualify you as a vendor.
• View you as a resource and not a salesperson.
• Have an elevated perception of your quality.
• Again, there are an infinite number of possibilities here. The key to remember is that “think” is an intellectual or logical acceptance of a fact or reality.

Finally, you might want your prospect to FEEL something after your sales call. In my own selling style (and frankly, my own speaking style), these moments are fairly rare; however, they do happen. My own style focuses more on “Do” and “Think.” However, there is room for “Feel” in the sales process. Some examples of what a customer might “Feel” after an effective sales call are:

• Comfort with you as a contact.
• An affinity for you or your company.
• Fear for the consequences of not taking an action.
• Again, there are numerous possibilities here.

It’s worth pointing out that “Do, Think, and Feel” are not mutually exclusive. You can have sales calls that target more than one of the three. For instance, you might want a prospect to qualify you as a vendor (“Think”) which results in beginning a sales process (“Do”). “Do, think, or feel” doesn’t have to be your approach to sales, but if you’re searching for a way to define your call objectives, this can be a great way to put reason to your rhyme.