Sales Genius

40 Insights From the Science of Selling

Graham Jones

• Publisher: John Murray
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781473605367
• eBook ISBN: 9781473605374
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Sales
• Index: Business

The fast-track MBA in sales
Imagine having instant access to the world's smartest thinking on sales - and being shown exactly what to do to guarantee that you get your own selling right, every time. Sales Genius makes it easy to apply what researchers know about brilliant selling to the real world. 40 chapters based on hundreds of cutting-edge business and psychology research projects reveal what works and what doesn't work in sales. Each of the 40 chapters is a mini-masterclass in selling, explaining the research and showing you how to apply it for yourself.In Sales, conventional wisdom often says one thing while research says another. Sales Genius cuts through the noise to bring you proven research and techniques for applying it that will simply make you a better salesperson.Quick to read and intensely practical, this book will bring a little sales genius into your day.'Fascinating insights that explode some of the myths around sales, sales management and sales strategy' Phil Jesson, Academy for Chief Executives 'What a great read... An insightful look at the world of sales' Anthony Stears, The Telephone Assassin 'As a sales specialist I'm impressed by the amount of detailed research which supports the information in each chapter' Andrew Docker, Andrew Docker Associates

CONSULTATIVE SELLING IS EXPECTED

Customers want sales people to consult, not sell

The Internet has provided us with some huge benefits. You can find out information on almost anything you like. You can buy all sorts of things from all around the world. You can chat with friends on the other side of the planet, free of any charges. Life without the Internet would be so much more complicated.

Indeed, when you think about the Internet from a sales perspective it has created huge possibilities. For instance, you can reach more people, sell more things and find out more about customers so you can entice them to buy even more from you. It has also made sales quicker to achieve, thanks to ecommerce. But for sales people, the Internet has brought with it one extremely significant issue. The Internet has meant that buyers are now more informed than ever before. When people want to buy something they do considerable amounts of research online. They check websites, they read reviews and they ask questions on forums. If that’s not enough they download detailed information, they ask their friends on Facebook for advice and they check out what expert bloggers are saying. The result of all this activity means that buyers are often more informed about products than the sellers.

The Internet has meant that buyers now perceive sales people much more in a support role. The buyer often knows what they want to buy and why. They know the technical details, they know all the options and they understand the pricing structure. All of the traditional things that were done by a sales person are now performed by web pages. The role of the sales person has undergone its most dramatic shift in centuries as a result of the Internet.

Most sales are transactional. A potential buyer needs something and the sales person sells it to them. In subsequent contacts with customers, sales staff simply look for an opportunity to close a deal on another product or service that the client might like. But that transactional role is now largely taken away from sales people by software. Indeed, ecommerce software can even recommend alternatives, upsell and provide suggestions according to the kind of shopper on the website. The place of the sales person has been stolen by the web.

However, sales people still have an important role to play. One of the key issues is that in spite of people being more informed than ever before about the products and services they buy, this information could be inappropriate for their situation. Because purchasers lack depth of understanding, the breadth of knowledge they have nowadays could be misinforming them. Consequently, sales people are increasingly taking on the role of being ‘consultants’ – providing advice, support and analysis to help informed buyers make the right decision. However, consultative selling is nothing new; the Internet just makes it more of a requirement. The question is: are sales people getting the message that they need to change?

In a study conducted in the Netherlands in 1997, bank sales staff selling mortgages were found to be ‘hard sellers’ rather than ‘consultative sellers’. This was in spite of the fact that mortgage-buying is much more a consultative process and that the banks in question had consultative sales processes in place. Of course this was before online selling had taken off in any significant way. However, a study involving 2,663 participants completed ten years later in 2007 found that in spite of businesses largely realizing they needed to be consultative in sales, most of them were not doing so. The research, conducted on behalf of the Sales Activator Company, showed that almost half of the businesses had already established a consultative sales process, but they were not following it. Fewer than one in five companies had a clearly set out consultative sales process that was being used in the business.

However, as John DeVincentis and Neil Rackham pointed out in their book, Rethinking the Sales Force, consultative selling is not always the answer, especially if the customer is seeking a transactional process. DeVincentis and Rackham cite the example of a company in the packaging sector that went to considerable lengths to establish a consultative sales process, only for it to be so badly rejected by the customers that the entire company was sold to one of its competitors who subsequently reversed the sales process into a transactional one. But note the date of this example – it was published back in 1999, only at the very beginnings of the impact of ecommerce on sales.

Nowadays, the Internet is the first place people go to for information on almost anything they want to buy. The transactional sales person has been replaced by the shopping cart. In spite of the advice to always match the sales process to the buyer, the consultative approach is now the increasingly dominant requirement as a result of customer behaviour changes brought about by the web.

The reason for the need to consider consultative selling is associated with the psychology of risk. Purchasing anything involves risk. We risk buying the wrong item or spending too much money. We risk buying from the wrong supplier. As a result, whenever we buy something we are seeking to reduce the risks. In traditional sales environments we do this in a variety of ways. These might include picking up the items we want to buy to get a feel of them. Or if it is a business service, we would want to meet the people intending to provide the service so we could see if we like them and get on with them. Online, much of this risk assessment is conducted by downloading data sheets, talking on forums and checking reviews. It is all part of our desire to reduce the risks.

Research revealed at the 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, held in Greece in June 2014, showed the extent to which people are seeking further information to reduce their risk of purchase. In a paper presented to the conference on the implications of ‘live chat’ facilities on ecommerce sites, it was shown that people use such systems to reduce their uncertainty about making a purchase. In other words, they use such features on websites to help them reduce risk.

The crucial question, however, is how do such online chat facilities help reduce risk. The answer is that they help the online sales person be more consultative. They ask questions, they provide information and they steer people towards making the right decision for them. Even for transactional websites you can see there are elements of consultative selling that work. Indeed, transactional websites that use live chat facilities tend to have a higher sales conversion ratio than those that do not offer this feature. In a 2013 study by Stratus Contact Solutions of Fortune 500 companies it was found that live chat increased sales conversion rates by 20 per cent. All of those sales chats were, of course, by their very nature consultative.

These days, people tend to know what they want and they have researched it before they even speak to a sales person. As a result, when they do speak to someone who is selling they expect the conversation to be more helpful, supportive and informative, and much less ‘hard sell’. Nowadays, this is a significant way you can help people reduce their purchase risks. As the sales expert Brian Tracy said on his blog in 2012: ‘Position yourself as an unpaid member of the customer’s staff, as a problem solver, helping him or her to increase sales, reduce costs or boost profits. You show that your product or service is actually “free” in that he/she ultimately gets back far more in dollar terms than he or she pays in the first place. This is a vital key to becoming a top sales person.’

What does this all mean in practical terms for sales people? It suggests that you will sell more when you stop trying to sell and that you help purchasers to solve their problems. They already know roughly what they want or need and a sales person’s modern role is to help them find the solution. The Internet has dramatically shifted what people expect of sales staff – but the research suggests that sales people are being slower to react. Helping people to buy, rather than selling to them, is the new maxim. That means doing research, finding out more about your customers and their needs, understanding more about their situation and the competition so that you can provide the right kind of advice, becoming a trusted advisor instead of a sales person. Thankfully, the very tool that purchasers are using to change the role of the sales person is the same thing that sales staff can use to improve their ability to sell consultatively – the Internet.

With the Internet as a primary sales tool it means that sales people can better research their customers, prospects and marketplaces. It means they can gain much more knowledge than ever before, helping them provide even better advice than they could without the Internet. The technology that has shifted the power relationship between company and customer appears to be the very technology that can change that balance back again. For sales people, the Internet is a fundamental tool to provide consultative selling to the vast numbers of web users who already think they know what they want to buy.

So what are the big takeaways here?

•  Solve problems for customers: Consultative sales people are problem solvers for their customers.

•  Conduct web research: Use the Internet to research your customers, their competitors and the marketplace.

•  Customers are not always right: Customers think they know what to buy, thanks to their extensive online research – but they may be making the wrong decisions. Only consultative selling can deal with that issue.

Sources

Verhallen, Theo M. M., Greve, Harriette, and Frambach, Ruud Th. (1997), ‘Consultative selling in financial services: an observational study of the mortgage mediation process’, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 15 Issue 2 pp 54–9

www.salesactivator.com/resources/free-tools/​issues-facing-sales-leaders-today-report

Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 8527, 2014, pp 504–15

www.stratuscontactsolutions.com/proactive-chats-impact-chat-sales-volume/

www.briantracy.com/blog/sales-success/the-power-of-consultative-selling-master-problem-solver-sales-person/

See also

Chapter 2 – Adaptive selling is vital

Chapter 5 – Most sales journeys start online

Chapter 20 – Closing sales is not necessary

Further reading

DeVincentis, John and Rackham, Neil, Rethinking the Sales Force (McGraw-Hill International, New York, 1999)

ADAPTIVE SELLING IS VITAL

Listen to your customers and adapt to their needs

People are complicated. No single individual is the same as another – even identical twins have differences. Therein lies a problem for sales people. When trying to sell to someone the reaction is likely to be different every time, because the potential customer behaves differently to the previous one. If you sell to a formula, such as having set prices and payment arrangements, specified delivery systems and no flexibility in terms of options, then you just have to keep trying to sell until you find someone who accepts your intransigence. Many sales people will tell you that they remember years of knocking on doors to be told to go away until they found that one person willing to make a purchase. Ask a seasoned sales person what the ‘secret’ to selling is and they will tell you – ‘persistence’. That reply comes from years of formula selling – having a standardized product and terms that only appeal to certain kinds of people. The sales person has to keep trudging on and on until they find another customer who fits the preconceived bill.

Adaptive selling is different. It takes place in organizations where sales people are empowered to make their own decisions and to adapt to the sales environment in which they find themselves. They can adjust almost anything to suit the specific requirements of the customer. They can take into account the particular context in which the sale is being made. They can also provide flexible solutions to customers, ensuring that what is being sold fits exactly with the needs of the client.

Many sales people believe they are performing adaptive selling, when in fact they are still operating to a formula. For years, sales people have been on training courses helping them to build rapport with a customer and to ensure they only provide them with what they want. Frequently, though, such training simply provides another formula. It might suggest, for instance, how to spot the personality types of customers allowing them to be pigeonholed. Indeed, sales manuals are full of discussions that classify customers into specific types. Sometimes these are given fancy names; other times sales people colour-code each kind of customer and some sales training links a type of wild animal to each customer persona.

The problem is that this kind of approach to sales is attempting to reduce the number of differences between customers down to a manageable group so that each category can then fit into its own formula. Far from helping sal...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title
• About the author
• Contents 
• Introduction
• 1. Consultative selling is expected
• 2. Adaptive selling is vital
• 3. Direct selling still succeeds
• 4. Email sells more than the web
• 5. Most sales journeys start online
• 6. Niches make profits
• 7. Make time for more appointments
• 8. Getting past the gatekeepers
• 9. Key accounts need knowledge
• 10. Networking works sometimes
• 11. Persistence pays in sales
• 12. How to find prospects
• 13. Referral sales are worth having
• 14. Avoid too much eye contact with customers
• 15. Buyers behave differently now
• 16. Selling to men or women is not the same
• 17. How to sell to silver surfers
• 18. Get inside the mind of your buyer
• 19. Spotting those buying signals
• 20. Closing sales is not necessary
• 21. Cross-selling works when allowed
• 22. Upselling works through customer focus
• 23. Posing powerfully boosts negotiations
• 24. Competitive selling needs low prices
• 25. Kindness kills objections
• 26. Mindfulness can cut conflict
• 27. Cold calls weaken sales
• 28. Perfect pitches come from mood setting
• 29. Customers have no idea about prices
• 30. Sales promotions are for the powerless
• 31. Sales commissions do not motivate
• 32. Sales training depends on the boss
• 33. Multiple sales targets are better than one
• 34. Forecasting the future depends on staff knowledge
• 35. Sales teams teach each other how to fail
• 36. Transparency in sales extends online
• 37. When to stop selling products
• 38. Sales leaders need to learn to manage
• 39. Customer knowledge depends on sales managers
• 40. Sales staff must keep up to date with procedures
• Copyright