Episode #155: You Don't Want Sales

Clever, shallow, smooth as silk, glib, “rat with a gold tooth” salespeople are the scourge of the earth. They are focused on your money and how quickly they can separate you from it. There are no barriers to entry or qualifications to enter this field of work. Riff raff need not apply but they do. Some will tell you anything, they live for today and like a shark, are constantly moving in order to feed. Snake oil purveyors to the naïve and trusting.

So, how do honest salespeople get anywhere when the image of the profession is so negative. Movies like The Wolf of Wall Street, Boiler Room, people like Bernie Madoff, etc. - it goes on and on convincing us that we are permanently potential victims of scammers, charlatans and confidence men.

By the way, we are all in sales today. You might be in one of the “professions” but you are no longer above the fray. Lawyers are competing for clients just as voraciously as dentists, architects, engineers, doctors and everyone else who spent years slogging through varsity. The title might be vague, such as the popular “business development”, but the activity is the same, just without the skills.

The key point to differentiate yourself from the carnival barker, pond scum is to stop focusing on sales. Instead focus on the re-order. This mental shift is fundamental. A sale can be a one time thing, a transient satisfaction of a temporary itch. In some cases that may be all that is needed. This is the hard road of sales though – constantly prospecting to find new clients, having a pipeline that is razor thin and precariously teetering between feast and famine. Not recommended.

The re-order concept is totally relationship based and is linked to the idea of the lifetime value of the buyer. There is a degree of trust that brings the business to you, without you having to go and hunt it down. Clients want to work with you because they feel safe and secure. They know the value you provide and they know your word is your bond. Sometimes, it may be a long time between drinks before the follow up order appears, but it will eventually appear. In this profession of sales, we all know the client is never on your schedule.

So what is the key to gaining the trust and providing the value? I believe the concept of kokorogamae (心構え) or “true intentions” is the key. This is a Japanese mental outlook which appears in many traditional activities - calligraphy, flower arrangement, tea ceremony, martial arts, etc. I discovered kokorogamae through my study of traditional Japanese karate-do – the Way of Karate. In business, your true intention is to be a partner in achieving the client’s success, on the basis that the more successful they become, the more goods or services you will need to provide them, as they grow and expand their operation.

If your true intention is to build trust, then there will be no attempt to snow the client at the first meeting, to lure them into a false sense of security. Instead you will tell the client what you do, who else you have done it for and some evidence about the results achieved for them. Evidence not bombast is a constant theme in your client conversations. Fast talking salespeople invariably are an evidence free zone.

You will bring insights you have gathered, that spark those client “we hadn’t thought of that” moments. You don’t string together a bunch of statements and claims about your widget’s features. Rather you ask questions enabling you to best analyse whether you in fact have a suitable solution or not, for the client’s issue. If you don’t have it, you say so immediately - you don’t prevaricate or equivocate. If you can’t be of service to this client, then your job is to go find someone else you can serve.

Your questioning skills are such that the client feels safe in the knowledge that your really understand what their business needs. Most salespeople are poor listeners, but clients really want to know you have heard them, rather than having been engrossed with what you will say next. You introduce the solution’s features, the benefits of the features, the applications of the benefits and the back up evidence to support what you are saying. You execute on the order from the client, as agreed and you deliver value at every point possible. You do this every time.

What you do after the sale tells the client everything and this determines whether this will be a long-term partnership or not. If something goes wrong you fix it immediately, you don’t become mealy-mouthed about what was happened and you hand back the money without hesitation. Salespeople defending the indefensible happens far too often and destroys all trust. If you are wrong admit it, fix it and make sure there is no repeat of the problem.

When I was involved in trade, the Japanese client’s container didn’t make it on to the ship as originally planned. The day before the ship sailed the overseas supplier told us that they would miss the departure. From the exporter’s point of view, no problem, just stick the container on the next available ship. The client was furious. One of my sales staff was holding the phone away from her head and we could all hear the meltdown underway. Yes the next ship would arrive soon, but the buyer had promised supply to their key clients and now they would show their unreliability and many years of trust would be destroyed. Needless to say there was no further business for that exporter, so a big opportunity lost through a casual attitude to service and a lack of understanding of the client’s needs.

No trust or no value – then no re-order. It is simple and complex at the same time. The salesperson’s job is to demonstrate the trust and supply the value. If your “true intentions” are correct, then value and trust will flow accordingly and so will the re-orders.

Action Steps

Think lifetime value of the client
Focus on the re-order rather than just a sale
Understand we are all in sales today
Have a correct kokorogamae and be a long-term partner to grow the client’s business
Validate claims with evidence
Use questions to properly understand the client’s business
Don’t argue with the client, be accountable and fix problems immediately