Episode #153: The 80-20 Rule Of Selling

We are all familiar with the 80/20 Pareto Principle, where 20% of buyers account for 80% of the sales and 20% of the salespeople, account for 80% of the revenue. There is another 80/20 split which we need to adhere to. This refers to the amount of time we are speaking relative to the buyer. Salespeople love to talk. They love to dominate the airwaves and through strength of will and determination subdue the client and make them buy. This is total nonsense.

Okay you may not be that bad, but if we taped your sales call and did an analysis of how much time you spoke compared to the buyer what would we find? I will guess that it will be getting close the 80% number. There are a couple of reasons for this. In Japan, the buyer’s expectation is that buyer and seller have clear and specific roles. The salesperson’s job is to give their pitch and the buyer’s job is to rip it to shreds. This requires that the salesperson launch straight into describing their widget and all the things that are great about it. The buyer then trounces all those arguments with why it isn’t suitable or is too expensive or is out of doubtful quality.

So the pitchpeople do all the talking and then get torn to bits by the buyer. The salespeople only describe their solution, when they know what the buyer needs. Prior to that they are very circumspect about what they say. Yes, they will indulge in some small talk at the beginning to build the trust with the buyer. After that though they will go rather quiet. They will ask questions about the business and how it is going. Or they may start with asking the buyer where they would like the business to be in a few years time. The intention is to discover the gap in results. This is where the listening part becomes very important, especially listening with the eyes. Matching words with body language must be a developed skill in salespeople and in the ability to read the buyer.

Unsurprisingly, not every buyer wants to trot out all the dirty laundry on the firms failing to someone who just walked in off the street and who they hardly know. So what we will be told is often just the top of the iceberg and the real problems are hidden below the waterline. Our job is to find out what are the real problems and then mentally confirm whether we have a solution for their problem. To do this we have to dig a bit deeper into the issues with simple questions that will get us to heart of the matter.

We may have to add in some explanation of why we want to know. This type of assurance that they can trust us doesn’t have to be a retelling of our life story or of the firm glorious history. We may just simply and concisely state, “We have a broad range of solutions which have worked for our clients. Maybe, one of these solutions will also work for your firm. I have no idea, however if you will allow me to better understand the core issues facing your business, I will be able to tell you if we can help or not”. This is a very disarming conversation. The key is to once having run through this reasoning, to sit there and SHUT UP. Don’t explain further, don’t add, don’t comment, don’t say a word. We must allow time for the buyer to digest what we have just said and allow them to make the decision they are prepared to trust us enough, to tell us what is really going wrong.

Even when we get to the solution provision point of the conversation we have to be careful we don’t start letting our mouth run off without control. As we explain certain elements of the features, benefits, application of the benefits and provide the evidence where this has worked before, we need to be careful. We have to stop at various points and check for buyer understanding and agreement that this is a viable solution. The tendency is to get lost in the detail and spend a huge amount of time thereafter dealing with objections and pushback. It is much better to flush these out along the way. In order to do that we have to learn to let the buyer make some comments on what we have said and switch the balance back to 80/20.

We are all guilty of talking too much, me included. Whenever I hear I am doing all the talking, I realise I have flipped the 80/20 balance and I need to ask a question to get them talking again. It is time for me to be silent and regroup. If we keep an ear open during the conversation and if we hear too much of our mellifluous voice we know something is wrong. Stop what we are doing and have that 80/20 rule at the forefront of our focus. We will definitely make more sales and have happier customers when we do that.