This week’s Navigator is inspired by one that I wrote twelve years ago, and actually incorporates part of it.  That post was called, “When Salespeople Get Older,” and it was inspired by a true story – you’ll read that in this article.  When I read my Google Analytics this month, I was shocked to find out that it was my most-visited page on my website, and that in fact it’s been one of the most visited pages on my site for a long time. It seems like a lot of people want to know how to manage a long sales career. What makes that resonate so much?

Well, being “of a certain age” myself, I think that there are a lot of us right now who are looking ahead at our careers, working hard to stay relevant, and at the same time, there are a lot of managers out there working on keeping their more seasoned salespeople ahead of the learning curve.  And, yes, there are a lot of salespeople who are now thinking about a well-deserved retirement.  For the record, I’m not one of them – I’m having WAY too much fun now to think about retiring! Still, this is a topic worth discussing.  How do salespeople stay relevant in the present, finish with a flourish, and retain the fruits of our labors?  Within this article will be (hopefully) great advice for salespeople in every phase of their careers.

Sales can be a tough career – mentally, emotionally, and even physically.  As you probably know, I worked in the car business for three years at the start of my career. In that time, I worked for three different dealerships (one long engagement, two short ones) before pointing myself in another direction. Since then, I’ve rarely crossed paths with people from back then; the car business tends to be a bit insular. But there are many, many people who have a long sales career in that business.

On the morning that inspired “When Salespeople Get Older,” I had received a resume’ from the owner of one of those dealerships.  He didn’t remember me; I only worked for him for a few months (his dealership was the one that convinced me that the car business wasn’t my long term gig). That guy had, at the time, a pretty profitable business. He had a great house, a ’58 Corvette (which I still would love to have), and was making money hand over fist – which is why the tenure and tone of the resume’ was so shocking. Since selling out over 10 years previous, he’d bounced from job to job, mostly in one year or shorter engagements, and in a downwards direction. His “job objective,” as stated on the resume’? “A stable living for my family and some means for retirement.” It made me sad, even though I didn’t particularly like the guy. But here’s the kicker; this is the career trajectory of entirely too many salespeople.

Entirely too many salespeople peak many years before they retire, and then they ride a spiral of unsuccessful short engagements to – where? I honestly don’t know.  Many salespeople tend to peak, in terms of performance, about 15-20 years into their selling career. Then they hit the wrong side of the bell curve, and go downward faster than they went up.

My question is, “why?” I still sell, after 33 years, and to be honest, it’s more fun for me now than it ever was. Part of that is because I’m self-employed and doing something that I truly love, but part of it is that the zest for the sales call has never left me. I’ve interviewed enough of the previous types of salespeople to know that this is the key issue. For many of the salespeople that are on a downward spiral, something happened – some event or turmoil – that knocked the pins out from under them. Psychologically, they’ve never been able to recover. For others, they simply stopped learning and growing at some point in the past, and they’re just trying to coast and collect. Let’s talk about how to make you NOT be one of those people.  Here are a few ways to keep your sales career vibrant and productive until YOU decide that it’s time to ride into the sunset.

1. Fall Back in Love With Selling. What I find, in talking to them, is that they literally can’t remember what they loved about selling; they have too easy a time focusing on the negative things that have happened. This typically leads to call reluctance (low quantity of activity) and poor call performance (low quality of activity), which leads to repeated failures. Since selling success is so mindset-dependent (I can’t think of any other discipline in business where enthusiasm is so critical to performance), a poor mindset equals a declining career. Worse, motivation is so individually based, it’s extremely difficult for others to re-energize a salesperson who has lost their zest for the job.
2. Keep Reminders of Successes. One common thread of many of the people I’m describing is that they can’t remember details of past successes very well; they are able to focus on recent failures. So, here’s my advice to you: start keeping reminders of your success NOW. Keep a journal, and make sure to put in plenty of details about WHY, and HOW, you are successful. Basically it will be your own training and motivation manual, and it will help you get back on track. I still have trophies, letters, and awards that I won 20 or more years ago.  Why?  Because every now and then, looking at them puts me back in that place and mindset when those trophies were placed into my hands.  They are very personal to me, to the point that I don’t take pictures of them or share them on social media, but they’re important.
3. Never Stop Learning. There are few things more gratifying to me than giving presentations or Webinars and seeing salespeople in their 60s, 70s, and even beyond who are still involved, still engaged, and still want to do better and learn more so they can be a better help to their customers and be valuable to their companies.  Those are people who are still in love with sales.  I talked to a salesperson last week who is 78 and learning how to use AI.  In fact, he sent me a short follow-up email thanking me for our conversation.  About 80% of it was written with ChatGPT.  He’s just starting with it, but I guarantee you that in a few months, he’ll be really good at it.  That’s a guy who still loves this profession.  Continuous learning not only helps you to stay relevant, it keeps you excited about what you do.  Stagnant salespeople stop learning – and that infects every part of their game.
4. Don’t Fall For “Toy Motivation.” I am a bit of a contrarian in my profession, because I break with a lot of the old ways of managing and motivating salespeople.  One of those ways is called “Toy Motivation,” and it’s still being practiced today.  The idea behind “Toy Motivation” is that the manager finds out what “toys” the salesperson really wants – a new Cadillac, a jet ski, a boat, whatever – and then influences the salesperson to buy those things as soon as humanly possible. The idea here is that in the short term, the salesperson lives beyond his or her means, which makes them “hungrier,” and therefore motivated to sell more.  What it usually does is lead to financial disaster – which can be one of those events that knocks the pins out from under a salesperson.  I’ve seen this many times. Frankly, I find it immoral for a manager to knowingly urge a salesperson to make bad financial decisions, and even more immoral for a trainer to influence a manager to do so.  A pox on all their houses.  While you are saving reminders of the successes in your long sales career (see #2 above), don’t forget to save some of the actual fruits of your labors as well.  Make good financial decisions, and if a manager tries to influence you otherwise, find another job where you are respected as a human being.  I have no leeway on this one.

And finally, if you truly lose your zest for selling and can’t get it back, find another way to make a living. It’s a big old business world out there, and there are many rewarding spots for people other than salespeople – and your long sales career can give you a leg up in any discipline. There’s no shame in leaving the profession; there are other ways to have success.

When I started my first sales management job in 1998, my boss, Darren Pearce, told me that I had the most fun job in the building – if I did it right.  “Troy, your job is just to produce success and be a hero.”  I’ve never forgotten that.  I hope none of you forget that, either.

“Your price is too high.”  “Your competitor has a lower price than you do.”  There are many, many ways to handle this objection.  All of them – except one – are LAME.  They cost you money, time, and business.  And worse, damn few salespeople are willing to execute the one way that works.  Maybe you should be one of the few and the proud.  No more preamble – let’s dig into the most common objection in selling and how you can sell through (not around) it.

Most of the time, the first step that salespeople take, upon hearing the “price objection,” is to soil themselves.  Then and only then will they start saying a bunch of stupid sh….uh, I mean “stuff,” that costs them money and is usually futile in winning the sale.  Let’s look at a few representative samples and then we’ll talk about the one strategy that works when your customer says, “Your price is too high.”

1. “My price is high compared to what?” This is one of the oldest and most annoying sales tactics in the book. Your price is too high compared to what your customer expected to pay, or wants to pay.  It’s designed to make the customer feel dumb for not knowing what an appropriate price should be, and it makes the salesperson and the customer into adversaries.  That’s never a good tactic.
2. “My competitor offered a lower price? You know they’re just lowballing and they’ll raise your prices later, right?”  Bad idea. First of all, you are insulting the customer’s intelligence, because you’re saying that they are too dumb to know that they’ll get a price increase later.  Secondly, are you going to guarantee that the customer’s prices will never go up?  If so, great!  If not, then you’re only debating on who will increase prices more and sooner.  That’s very, very shaky ground to be on.
3. “My competitor offered a lower price? Well, get their offer out and let’s compare apples to apples.”  If there is any phrase in selling that is like fingernails on the blackboard to me, it’s “apples to apples.”  It’s lowest common denominator, low- IQ selling, and it’s one of the oldest, most hackneyed phrases in the book.  There are many reasons why this is a stupid thing to say.  First of all, you’re saying, “Well, let’s make us just like them.”  Considering that you’ve spent your selling time until now saying that you are different than your competitors, why would you want to then level the playing field with them?  That’s dumb.  You aren’t an apple.  They are.  But even more importantly, this is again an insulting tactic because you’re telling the customer that they’re too dumb to read the words written on a page and interpret them correctly.  Customers don’t buy from salespeople who make them feel dumb.
4. “I want the last shot at the price.” What you’re saying here is that the numbers on your proposal mean nothing until all the other competitors have checked in – and then your price will be determined by theirs.  Make no mistake – if you don’t know how much your stuff should cost the customer until you know what your competitors are charging, you suck at your business.  Would you let your competitors walk into your office and write your price manual for you?  No? Then don’t let it happen here.
5. “Bid.” I’ve talked about this before and even made videos on it.  But “Bid” is a word that should be banned from your vocabulary.  “Bid” implies multiple vendors, and it also implies that the only determination will be numbers on a page.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  Stop saying “bid.”

There are, of course, many more dumb things that salespeople say when the customer says, “Your price is too high,” but you should have the idea by now.  But that leaves one big question.  What, then, should you do in the face of that objection?  Well, there’s really only one good strategy.

Your approach, from the beginning of the Buyer’s Journey, should be that you fully expect to be the highest price, that you’re worth it because you are by far the best solution for your customer’s needs, and that if you are not the highest price it is purely by accident.

This works.  I once worked in an industry where the company that was by far the biggest, most successful, and most profitable, had that entire attitude.  For that matter, they walked with such swagger that everything they did told the customer that the customer was flat-out dumb if they didn’t enthusiastically pay that higher price.

And they kicked everyone’s ass and are now the 800 pound gorilla of their industry.

But this is the key.  From the moment they engaged the customer, every action they took and every impression they gave sent the message that they were the elite.  They dressed better, they sold better, their service trucks looked the best, their plants looked the best, and they had attitude.  And if the customer asked if they would be the cheapest, they said, “no, and if you are looking for the cheapest, I wish you well.”

Oh, and they did in fact fulfill those promises about their service experience.

Now, I don’t recommend that you necessarily be arrogant about your sales approach – but can you adopt part of that method?  Definitely.  But it requires completely evaluating every part of your process.  You must provide a better experience at every stage of the Buyer’s Journey than your competitors.

Dress better.  These days, that’s not hard, given the ever-declining standards of what constitutes “business dress.”

Understand the Buyer’s Journey and where you are in it.

Ask better questions and more of them than your competitors.

Give presentations that are tailored to the customer’s needs.  No one-size-fits-all slide decks.

Be direct with your price – no waffling or uncertainty.

Close in a confident and welcoming fashion.

Then make sure that the purchase and service experience is elite-level.

Rinse and repeat.

I’ll be 100% frank with you.  I never thought I “won” a sale if I was the lowest price.  In fact, if customers asked me if I’d be the lowest, I’d respond, “If I am, I’d like the opportunity to re-quote.”  They laughed.  And then, more often than not, they paid a higher price when they said “yes.”  Did everyone?  Nope.  No sales tactic works on everyone. BUT – and this is important – the customers who did buy ended up being great customers and great relationships, and didn’t leave the moment a competitor came in and undercut me.

So, how do you handle it when the customer says, “Your price is too high?”

First, from the start of your involvement with them, be so much better than your competitors that your customer knows that you really don’t care – that you deserve the higher price.

Differentiate yourself by asking more and better questions so that your customer knows that you are, in fact, different from your competitors.

Be confident and forthright with your pricing.  Make it feel like it’s both set in stone and a great value – not because it’s cheaper, but because that they are still getting amazing return on investment even at a higher price.

The price objection starts in your customer’s mind – not on a piece of paper.  Set the paradigm from the start and you will hear it less, and you will sell more.

Proposing and closing is a high-stress moment in selling.  I’ve been there and I understand.  If you’re not just a little amped up when you put a proposal forth, you may need to check your commitment to selling.  I’ve been in selling for a long time, and I still get excited!

That means that when the customer says “no,” (and you will always have customers that say “no”), we have stress to manage.  One of the worst ways you can manage that stress is by insulting the customer’s intelligence.  A friend of mine described such a situation to me recently.  She turned down a salesperson, and the salesperson’s response was, “Well, obviously, you just don’t understand what I’m offering.  What questions can I answer?”  After a moment’s shocked silence, she said that the biggest question he could answer was how quickly the meeting could end.  NO SALE.

Look, it’s possible that the customer doesn’t understand your proposal.  Whose fault is that? YOURS, champ!  Not theirs.  A sale happens when need, solution, and timing are all present.

The customer has to have a definite need.

Your solution has to solve the problem – by the CUSTOMER’s agreement and standards, not yours.

And the timing has to be right.

Which means that if the customer said “no,” one of three things has happened:

1. The need wasn’t present, important, or you didn’t discover the right need. Most of the time, this is the case – too many salespeople do only rudimentary questioning.  Ask comprehensive questions to discover needs, and then confirm with the customer that you have assessed their needs correctly.
2. What you are selling didn’t solve the needs. Once you have discovered the needs, your presentation must be centered around their needs, not a one-size-fits-all “here’s how we are awesome” slide deck.  And once you have shown your solution, you must confirm that the customer agrees that this will solve the need.  A great question to ask:  “How do you see a win from making this purchase?
3. You are hitting them at the wrong time. A friend whom I greatly respect always says, “you have to be there when their window is open.”  He’s right.  Ask timing-based questions; for instance, “When would you like to implement this?”  Know you’re at the right time; that way, it won’t surprise you.

And if you do all of those things, customers will still say “no.”  Nothing is perfect in selling.  But when they do say so, instead of telling your customer that they just didn’t understand all the ways you will rock their world, instead you should simply ask your customer why they are saying “no.”  Don’t whine.  Just ask.  Then let the conversation go from there.

You might not win the sale.

But you also won’t get booted out of the office because you expected them to say something that no customer has ever said.

Don’t sell stupid.

Want to fix stupid?  Contact me and let’s talk.

There’s a youth movement afoot, and if you’re not on board with how to sell to younger buyers, you’re going to get run over by it. Purchasing power and corporate leadership is shifting.  Most of the time, I hear salespeople and sales managers bellyaching about how “different” the “new generation” is in terms of their purchasing habits, rather than trying to figure out what those habits are and how to adapt our selling methods to them.

Younger buyers may have different buying habits than you’re used to, but they ARE buying, and what you don’t understand about trends in purchasing is costing you money.  For the last couple of years, I’ve been talking to people at conferences who want nothing more to demystify the art and science of selling to younger buyers (for the purposes of this article, let’s just say that the dividing line between “younger” and “not younger” is 40).  Well, I’m here to help.  Let’s stop bellyaching and start learning.

The skill of selling to younger buyers can be summed up with 4 C’s: Concision, Connection, Collaboration, and Consideration.

• Concision: Concision is the art of being concise in your communication. One complaint I hear all the time is, “Troy, younger buyers just don’t want to talk to people in person and they don’t want to see salespeople!”    Younger people are in face to face contact with other people all the time.  We are social creatures, and that trait is not generational.  However, younger buyers want you to get to the point – to be concise.  A younger buyer doesn’t want to sit and talk football for 30 minutes before they discuss business.  If you are in front of them, that means that you need to get to the point and give value for the time spent. Forget the old “fish on the wall” fake rapport tactics – you’ll get tossed out. Ask good questions and make to-the-point, targeted, individualized presentations that improves the buyer’s condition in the time you spend with them.  Hack:  Prepare five great questions about their business to open every new sales call.
• Connection: Younger people are the most connected generation(s) that the world has ever seen, and this is due of course to technology. It’s not unusual for younger people to have friends literally all over the world.  Have they met all of those people face to face? Probably not – but through technology, they have fostered connections.  That means that they have a larger business network than could have ever been dreamed of decades ago.  That also means that they want to be connected with YOU.  How much do you use LinkedIn?  Hint – just putting up a rudimentary profile is not “using” LinkedIn.  If you aren’t posting, commenting, and engaging with other people, they’ll see it.  When you approach a younger buyer, they are likely to check you out on LinkedIn within 24 hours.  If your presence is found wanting, you will be less likely to become a business connection to them.  Staying off of business social media is an outdated strategy.  Hack:  Set your browser’s home page to LinkedIn, so that every day when you fire up the computer, it’s staring you right in the face.  You’d be amazed at how much you can get done in 15 minutes a day.
• Collaboration: Studies show that the average buyer today has completed 57% of his or her buying process before ever seeing a sales rep.  Younger people are researchers, and when they bring knowledge to a sales call, they expect it to be part of the conversation.  More than that, they want to be active partners in the purchasing process – hence, collaboration.  A salesperson who doesn’t respect the buyer’s journey is going to lose out.  Worse, a salesperson to takes it upon themselves to explain to the buyer why everything they have learned is incorrect will mightily anger the buyer.  When the younger buyer comes to the table, expect that buyer to be current on the offerings of your competitors and how they compare.  Are YOU that current?  Hack:  One of the first questions you should ask a buyer is, “What have you done thus far in this purchasing process?”
• Current: There are still many salespeople out there who are technophobes.  If that’s you, you are setting your own expiration date.  Being “current” means being up to date on the technology that affects your customers’ buying process and communication needs.  In today’s world, if you don’t know how to use video conferencing platforms, social media, IM, and text, AT A MINIMUM, you’re limiting your potential for success.  Why do you need to be comfortable in all of these platforms?  Because you need to meet your customers where they are – and they might be in a number of different places, in terms of communication.  I have one client that is nearly impossible to reach by phone, but if I text him, I have a response within minutes.  If I refused to text (as a salesperson told me last week that he did), I’d never get ahold of him.  Hack:  Ask your customers (not just the younger ones) what they prefer for communication.  Then communicate the way they want to.

Are younger buyers different?  Somewhat, for reasons both cultural and technological.  But they are still people, and they are still individuals.  By now, you should have noticed that none of my four C’s put all younger people in one bucket.  The real art of selling to younger people is to recognize who they are as individuals, be adaptive to meet them where they are, and respect their skills, processes, and abilities.  We’ll delve into this topic a lot more as 2023 continues, but the four C’s should give you a good starting point.

No Customer Ever Video

Okay, who likes to be lied to?  Raise your hands.  You in the back – put your hand down.  You look stupid.

I see salespeople and marketers who lie every day to their customers and still expect to sell to them.  In fact, they begin their relationships with a lie and still expect to sell to them.

That’s stupid.

When you use a tactic like beginning a cold email with “Re:,” to attempt to fool your prospect into thinking you had a dialogue with them, not only will they delete the email – they’ll delete any chance of buying from you.

Why? Because you are a LIAR.  And – I know this is shocking – people don’t like to buy from liars.

So, what is a salesperson to do when it comes to cold email prospecting?  Well, there are a few pointers I can offer you.

First – understand that return rates for emails are low.  The rule of thumb for direct mail used to be a 1% to 2% response rate.  I think that would be a high rate for email prospecting; if you’re going to send out prospecting emails, be prepared to send a lot of them.

Second – rather than lying in your subject line for attention, think clickbait.  In a business sense, your prospecting should be problem solution oriented.  What problems can you solve for them, and how can you communicate that in as concise and impactful a way as possible?

Third – your email itself should also be concise and impactful.  Get your message across with as little fluff as possible.  You want to make good use of your client’s time, so give them the meat of the matter in something that only takes them a few seconds to read.

Fourth – no attachments.  Attachments are the kiss of death; they get your email sent to the spam folder.

Fifth – everything should be brand consistent.  I don’t just mean your company’s brand, but also your personal brand.  That’s why deception is bad; unless you are a liar by nature, lying in an email just to get attention is the wrong path.

There’s more to prospecting, of course, but those are topics for the future.

Don’t sell stupid.  If no customer has ever said they like it, don’t do it.

#saleshack:  Work with me.

Can we agree that making the customer negotiate with the boss is stupid?  No customer has ever said how much they loved negotiating with “the boss.”  As I promised in the video, let’s fix stupid.

“Boss Negotiation” happens because the boss doesn’t trust the salesperson to make an acceptable profit on the deal, so the boss must be “the bad guy” in order to help the salesperson hold price.  I have a sneaking suspicion that many sales managers do this because they like the control, as well.

The problem is that this disempowers the salesperson and makes the customer think, “Well, why don’t I just talk directly to the boss?”  In fact, many customers say this outright.

It’s wasteful for the salesperson and annoying to the customer.

Worse, in my experience, the achieved final price actually ends up LOWER than what it is when the salesperson handles their own negotiation – thus defeating the purpose (I think this is because the salesperson is so devalued in the customer’s eyes).  So, how about we stop doing it?  Here are a few keys to getting away from this:

If you are the sales manager:

1. Teach your salespeople how your company makes money. I don’t just mean that you sell goods and services at a price; teach your salespeople about all of the moving parts that go into generating an acceptable profit.  I find that most salespeople will be good agents of the company and protectors of the company’s profit if they know this information.  Keeping them dumb is dumb.
2. Establish pricing guidelines that salespeople can use in the field so that they don’t have to come back to the batcave to get pricing and proposals. When salespeople can quote price on the spot, they become more important in the customer’s eyes.  Part of this process is having a high/low set of guardrails around pricing – or even better, a pricing matrix like the rate cards used in advertising and media with brackets for pricing.
3. Teach your salespeople how to quote price in a definite fashion and how to negotiate on their own. Yes – this means you give up some control.  The time you save can be used to coach your salespeople and develop their skills; that’s a win/win.
4. Make it safe for salespeople to say ‘no’ to bad business, and stand up for them when they do. There’s nothing worse than being a salesperson who says ‘no’ to a deal that the boss won’t accept – and then finding out later that the boss would have accepted it (because there is information you haven’t been told by your boss).  Ask me how I know this.  If the salesperson turns down a deal that’s outside the guardrails you set for them, it’s your job to stand by them and praise them for making a good decision.
5. Finally, say ‘no’ as a last resort for when salespeople come in with a bad deal. If you’ve done steps 1-4, they already know that they are bringing you a bad deal, so the ‘no’ won’t be a surprise.  Even so, use it as a coaching moment to help them not bring you bad business in the future.

If you are the salesperson:

1. Be a businessperson that is a good steward of company profits, not just a salesperson who is trying to get any deal that you can. This means being assertive about learning how your company makes money and the role that you play in it.    Then live it.
2. Don’t make anyone else “the bad guy” in negotiation. “This is what my boss needs me to do” shouldn’t come out of your mouth.  “This is what I need” or “This is what my company needs” are acceptable – YOU are the representative of your company.
3. Hold price and don’t bring your boss junk deals. The principle here is that you, the salesperson, are trustworthy and able to be a good guardian of profit.  So be that.
4. Don’t ever sell JUST on price. You should be able to come up with at least two solid non-price reasons for the customer to switch their business to you.  If you can’t, don’t bother – if you win them on price, you’ll lose them on price.

Selling this way is empowering and professional for the salesperson and sales manager, it’s a lot more fun, and it produces a better buying experience for the customer.  And better buying experiences lead to stronger relationships and higher profits.

“Disruptive” is a word that’s frequently used an infrequently understood.  To be “disruptive” is to blow up current expectations and patterns, and set new expectations and patterns.  Our profession of selling is one that could use some disruption.  According to a recent HubSpot survey, salespeople are one of the least trusted professions.  Only 3% of people say that they trust salespeople!  At least we beat out politicians, so there’s that. Still – it’s time to update and change.

Any profession with a 3% trust rating needs some work.  The problem is that our customers have been telling us for years how they want to be treated, and we ignore them.  We focus on “Sales Processes” instead of the Buyer’s Journey.  We ask limited questions.  We hold back critical information thinking that we’re giving out “free consulting.”  In short, when customers have the chance to kick salespeople out of the process, they usually take it.  The good news is that this leaves a lot of ways to be disruptive in sales.  Here are three:

1. Be transparent.  Today, the ultimate sales flex is transparency; customers don’t want to fight for critical information.  Those fine-print contract terms?  Put ‘em on your website so that customers can read them before you visit.  Publish pricing.  Be aware of, and reactive to, your online reviews.  You can either embrace transparency or have it forced upon you. And if you’re scared of putting your information out there, don’t be.  It’s out there anyway.  Technology has made it so that there aren’t any secrets – and if you don’t look like you’re trying to keep secrets, customers will trust you more.

   This also means that you should stay current on what information is out there about you and your company.  Did you get a bad Google review?  Chances are that your prospects will become aware of it.  Be ready to discuss it with them, openly and honestly.  Someone has ripped your company on Glassdoor?  Same thing – be informed, ready, and candid.

2. Ask your customer how they want to buy. Again – your sales process is “you” focused – be “them” focused. Being “them” focused is one of the easiest and best ways to be disruptive in sales.  I learned how to be disruptive in sales when I was 19; I just didn’t recognize that I was doing so.  I had a job selling mens’ suits at a large department store in Topeka, KS.  Topeka was not a big ‘suit wearing’ city, and most of my customers were coming in to buy a suit for an occasion – a graduation, a funeral, or a wedding.  We all know what retail salespeople do, right?  They say, “Can I help you?”  The customer, knowing their line in this play, quickly says, “Just looking.”  In other words, “leave me alone.”  I did that for a little while, and then one day this couple came in.  The man looked decidedly like he was there under protest.  So instead of the standard question, I asked him, “So, how do you like to shop?”

   He stared at me for a moment and then grumbled, “Well, I really don’t.”  I smiled and said, “Let me guess.  You’re here because someone is graduating, someone died, or someone is getting married, right?”  At that, he smiled and said, “Yeah, my daughter is getting married and I need a suit.”  I quickly sized him up and walked him to his size on the rack (48 regular, if I remember right).  He grabbed the most conservative blue suit on the rack and said, “That’ll do.”  I stopped him, agreeing that it would do the job for the wedding – but what if I hooked him up with a suit that was equally acceptable for the wedding, but had a little more flair?  That way he could wear it with a sport shirt to take his wife out for a nice dinner.  At this, his wife perked up and elbowed him.  He said that this might be possible – so I found a windowpane plaid suit, paired it up with a dress shirt and tie, and then found a couple of sport shirts to try on with it.  I’ll never forget the look on his wife’s face when he came out of the dressing room.  Suffice it to say that I bet that he had a very good evening.  I sold him two suits, two sport shirts, and a shirt and tie.  After that experience, that’s what I did – and the older guys never could figure out how a punk kid was outselling them.

   I was being disruptive by breaking the customer’s expected patterns, and instead working with them to help them buy in the way they wanted to.  I made the customer a genuine partner in the process – and it worked.  It will work for you, too.

3. Give free advice. Salespeople are petrified of giving “free consulting,” meaning that they want to hold back their prescriptions for solving the customer’s need until they feel that they have a deal.  The fear is that the customer will take their advice to another vendor, get a cheaper price, and buy elsewhere.  This fear ignores two essential facts.  First – customers eventually buy from the vendor they want to.  If you aren’t that vendor, you’ve done a lousy job of showing the customer your value.  Second – the knowledge that the customer wants and needs is out there.  Remember that whole “technology” thing we were talking about.  Giving the customer essential knowledge is one way to build a relationship that is based on openness and trust.  “Don’t be a free consultant” is one of those old philosophies that has been made obsolete.  Remember – there are no trade secrets today.

Most of the time, when “disruptive” is used in a business context, the writer or speaker is referring to technology.  In our profession, tech is vital – but technique can be even more disruptive.  Going against the grain in a way that your customers want is the best, and most profitable, way you can be disruptive every day.