Are You Telling Your Prospects NOT To Buy From You?
Category: Sounds weird but actually surprisingly common
I’ve been working with a lot of sales reps on some intensive coaching in the last few weeks.
As of late, a common theme has reared its very unattractive head – so of course I had to write about it...
We are telling people not to buy from us.
Of course, no one ever actually says ‘don’t buy this product’. Instead it’s the small actions, slight changes in body language, hesitation and use of certain phrases together; often unbeknownst to the poor rep themselves, that actually discourage the prospect from moving forward.
What does this look like?
I’ll give you some examples of what I mean.
1. Running from pricing
We did a role-play where when asked about price, the salesperson responded with ‘it’s not too scary, don’t worry’. The salesperson mentioned again when they were presenting the pricing, ‘I know it looks a bit scary, so that’s why we can package it all together...’
Another salesperson didn’t even say their price aloud. They only showed the number to the prospect on their brochure, pointing to the figure and saying, ‘that’s what we’d be looking at’.
Someone else did present price, but did so so quickly that you could blink and miss that part of their presentation. It was almost as though they wanted to run right past that part of the conversation and hope the moment could be forgotten.
If your voice shakes, your pace changes, and your tone presents the cost more as a question than a statement, we have a problem. If you are so frightened of your pricing that it becomes ‘ye price that shall not be named’; that you insinuate that it might scare someone or be too expensive; or present in a way that suggests you don’t even want to talk about it – then the message being sent is that you believe the price is too high. How could we possibly be surprised then, when the prospect isn’t filled with confidence in moving forward?
2. Body language
If you physically deflate when a client presents you with an objection, there’s an issue. If you present pricing with a facial expression that says ‘please don’t hate me’, there’s an issue.
Our body language speaks louder than our words do – don’t have it work against you and your prospect.
3. Skipping steps
An aside in another role play: “I don’t think asking questions really works for my clients. They only really want to know about the price.”
If you’re skipping parts of your process because you presume that clients don’t want to be involved in it, you’re taking away the opportunity from yourself to actually sell, and from the client to buy. We aren’t hired to simply give people information – a brochure would be much cheaper than a salesperson. The art of selling comes with process. If we start skipping steps because we’ve decided it’s easier that way, then our calls might be quicker but they certainly won’t be better.
4. Lack of persistence
Salesperson: Are you happy to proceed with the order?
Client: Actually, I think it’s pretty expensive. We’ll pass for now.
Salesperson: ...
Client: ...
Salesperson: Okay, well thanks for your time and I’ll give you my business card in case anything changes in the future.
...
How well does this dialogue serve your client?
Needless to say (as I go on to say it anyway), not showing interest in an objection, not displaying curiosity and working to solve problems to a mutually beneficial outcome – this all insinuates that perhaps you don’t really care. Or, that you’ve been sold by the buyer’s compelling case, so you agree with the objection. Or, that you don’t believe in your ability to work through a customer’s concern. Regardless of the reason, you’re doing a disservice to yourself and you’re doing a disservice to your client. It’s up to you to lead the journey with the client – and a lack of persistence is where we choose not to lead that journey.
Why does this happen?
The reason we start to pick up these nasty habits usually comes down to a shift in our mindset. It’s the same reason why new trainees often have a ‘lucky streak’ when they first start – because they haven’t had the build up of belief changing experiences that can accumulate in the mind like plaque on teeth.
Perhaps you’ve had a string of customers recently who have all badgered you about price, to the point where you now question what your product is worth. Perhaps you’ve had the same objection come up enough times that you now believe that objection. Maybe you now think you can’t overcome it. Maybe you don’t believe in your product anymore. It might be that you simply haven’t gotten the results you wanted recently and it’s led to a negative cycle of self-talk that says ‘I can’t do this.’
Experiences can lead us to believe a number of things, from ‘my clients aren’t interested in X’ to ‘I can never overcome objection Y.’ These beliefs either help us or hurt us, and if they’re hurting, we need to fix that.
What to do?
If you’re reading this thinking, ‘oh my gosh! I do one/some/all of these things!’ then first of all, congratulations. The first step is self-awareness. If you’re not sure but have some suspicion, record yourself giving a presentation and analyse the heck out of it. It’s good to do this with a colleague or mentor. Is the confidence there? What message are you reallysending? Importantly, why are you sending this message?
Another point I want to emphasise if you resonate with this is that it’s okay. All is not lost, and I would even suggest that the most seasoned salespeople could fall into this trap at one stage or another.
The next step is to clean that slate, friend. The beauty here is that we have total control of how we choose to respond to a situation:
Manage your delivery
If you’ve lost confidence in your product, refresh yourself on your product knowledge. Talk through it with colleagues. Observe those who are doing well, and surround yourself with the positive colleagues (not the cranky guy who has been there for 20 years and hates everyone).
At the end of the day, delivery matters: Practice writing up and presenting pricing with confidence. Do it as many times as you have to for it to become a natural part of your process.
Manage your body language
Be mindful of your body language and consciously respond appropriately when a customer displays resistance (i.e. not deflating like a sad balloon). If you’re hyper-conscious about this to start, it will become a positive habit.
Stretch yourself
Make sure you're following your process; no step-skipping. A great challenge that can help get us back into the swing of things is, when a customer objects and you feel the urge to close the conversation: Ask a question instead.
This ‘one more question’ challenge can help us to open up conversations again and start working with our prospects concerns instead of dismissing them. It can start to revitalise our persistence muscles – and will probably help us achieve some sales in the process.
Manage your mind
This one is the most important.
Get more conscious while you’re interacting with prospects. Am I presuming this person will say ‘no’ to me? Am I pre-empting that they’ll hate my products? Or am I backing myself and my product?
Before you make your next call or go to your next meeting, do whatever it is that makes you feel great – whether its music, coffee or something else. Put yourself in a great mood. Be prepared. Tell yourself it’s going to be an awesome meeting.
If you find yourself making a pre-judgment of your prospect, make it a positive one instead. Prejudge that this person will see the great value in your product, rather than that they will say no.
Remember all the times you sold to a customer, provided them value, and left them incredibly satisfied? Visualise the same outcome with the next.
Small actions make up the whole process, and when we understand that it starts with us we can consciously shift our mindset to get us back in the zone.
Summing it up
Of course, as much as we like to think of sales as a complex beast to master, it really is quite simple. Not easy, but simple. The hurdles we face inevitably come from lack of knowledge or lack of confidence. In other words, either we don’t know how to work with a problem, or we don’t believe enough in the solution and ourselves to solve it.
Ultimately, a great salesperson is there to serve their clients. And we serve by providing great value that in some way makes the client’s life or business better. That starts with us - sometimes we need to give our mind a makeover to ensure it’s working for us and not against us.
After all, if you’re not sold on your product and yourself, there’s no way you’re selling to anyone else. Back yourself, back your price, back your product - and your prospects might back you too.
What do you think?
Make today the day,
Sonia
This blog post was originally posted on my training website, Statusone.com.au, on June 25, 2018. I have since been moving some of my favourite blog posts from there over to here, as this is now my ‘content hub’ and I want you to have access to some of the cool stuff I’ve written about before. You can still check out the Status One site if you’re interested in corporate training if you want. Also, don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter below for updates and weekly exclusive content.