Here’s my advice for doing better than most of your colleagues in sales:
- Work for a company that you believe in and believes in you.
- Work for a company that has a product or service with some solid differentiation. And except in a few rare cases, customer service is not good enough. Everyone can have good customer service while a client is going through the sales process. Everyone can claim that their company has the best customer service. But you can’t prove it until after they’re already a customer. Price is also not a great differentiator, though it will win you some deals.
- Figure out who your customers truly are. And not just who your marketing team thinks they are or who your manager says you should call. What’s the common traits of someone who’s problem is solved by your product or service? Find those people. Call them. Narrow it down as much as you can and call them. Make sure if you get a conversation that your first couple questions are further qualifying that you can help them. Don’t waste their time. Don’t waste yours.
- Related to #3, don’t try to sell something to someone that they don’t need or would be much better served by going elsewhere. You know how they say really good sales people can sell ice to an eskimo? Don’t do that. Eskimos have plenty of ice. They probably need space heaters. Also that’s a somewhat derogatory statement.
- Make sure people know what you do. Make sure people know that you are excited about what you sell. And that you would love for them to recommend business to you.
- Cold calls. Blech. Whenever possible try to get an introduction. LinkedIn is great for this. When that’s not possible, send a brief, non-salesy email introducing yourself, your service, a couple selling points that work broadly and an invitation to hear other ideas you have. If they say, “Leave me alone”, leave them alone. If they don’t respond, email them a week later. If they still don’t respond, leave them alone for 3 months.
- Your email worked. You set up a call time. You make the call. You introduce yourself and what you do. You ask them how they are doing what they are doing now and listen. If they don’t share much, ask them questions. “Can you tell more about that?” “Is that how you wish it worked?” “What’s your favorite part?” “What’s your least favorite part?” Anytime you talk should be in an effort to get them to talk to you more.
- You finally have all the info they need. Your product is exactly what they need and a price that’s fair. Now how do you convince them? Well, remember all that listening you were doing? What you were hearing was (maybe) problems with their existing provider, that they might be expanding soon, that business isn’t so great and they could really use X to help them out, that they really wish they could spend more time with their family, etc. “Well, Mr(s). Customer, our product was created to fix some of the challenges you’re facing like…”
- Or maybe #8 doesn’t go so well. They haven’t had any problems. They aren’t interested in your pitch. They aren’t looking to switch. Cost of switching is a deficit for you to overcome and status quo is difficult to beat. Thank them for their time. Ask permission to check in in the future, hang up. Now did you lose the deal because you never had a chance? Or did you lose the deal because you blew it? Never assume it’s the former, but don’t beat yourself up too much if it’s the latter. Figure out what you did wrong and try not to do it again.
- Close the deal. I’ve heard somewhere that most salespeople never ask for the sale. They just hope the customer leaps from their seat and says, “I’ll take it.” You don’t have to be slimy or high pressure or manipulative or tricky to close the deal. If you’ve laid out a compelling offer at a fair price, all you have to ask is, “What do you think of that?” or “What do you think so far” or some variation of that. The customer will tell you exactly what they think. They might say it sounds great. They might say they aren’t interested (see #9). They might say let me think about it. They might ask you to send more info. If they said “yes”, then shut up and take the next action. Get the credit card number, get the contract out, whatever it is you do to prove to your boss you are doing your job. If they ask to see more info, ask them what they would like to see in the info. If they have specifics, it’s probably legit that they want to see something in writing. If they just ask for something in general, it’s probably a polite ‘no’. If they want to think on it, ask them if there is any other info you can give them to help them think through their decision and then schedule a time for a follow up call. (Also, don’t try #10 if you aren’t talking to the decision maker. That’s dumb. And will make people feel pressured to make a decision they can not. It will make them want to protect the decision maker from you, you sleazy S.O.B.)
- Follow ups are awesome. In fact, most of this process so far has implied that most sales are 1-2 call closes. That may be the case from some products or services, but not most. You’ll be having multiple conversation, potentially with multiple people and performing some variation of steps 7-10 over and over. In between cycling through those steps, you will reach out to the prospect on a regular basis. Once a week? Once every two weeks? Once every month? It depends on your typical sales cycle and the busy-ness of the person you are connected to. I don’t care that I ended that sentence with a preposition.
- Follow ups are your chance to take the temperature of your prospect. But don’t just be like, “Hey are you ready to buy yet?” How are they doing? You found out that their kid was in a soccer tournament in the last call right? Did they win? Be a freaking human. This is the best part of sales. Discovering lives outside of your own. Connecting with people. Making friends. Don’t just pretend to be interested. BE INTERESTED. (Read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” if you’re having trouble with this.)
- Eventually your pipeline becomes filled with prospects at various stages. These will start to close. You’ll start to make money. And if you treat your customers properly they’ll send you more customers. I’ve on more than a few occasions even had prospects from deals I didn’t win send me business because they knew I was honest and not high pressure.
Breaking this down into steps is a little like watching sausage be made. It’s not pretty that it can be systemized. It puts people off. I know this. But I’m saying this is what works most the time. Really the universal rule out of all this is to be a human. You don’t have to be super friendly and Richard Simmons-level enthusiastic. You just have to be polite and truly sincere in your effort to put your customer in a better situation than they are in today.
Be a human. A compassionate human.
Robert Oswald is the Director of Partnerships at Braintree with over 10 years of B2B sales experience. He lives in Chicago, likes hamburgers and can not dance to save his life
