As the SVP of Purchasing for a national buying cooperative, I've worked with hundreds of professional decision makers in evaluating salespeople from some of the most prestigious companies in the country. I can tell you with certainty that successful companies selling to other businesses, do not send in shoddy representatives.
The salespeople that enter a business looking to extend or begin a b2b relationship are good-looking, articulate, well-trained, personable folks who are comfortable in business settings communicating with other professional business people. Yes, there are minor differences in personality types and corporate culture matches, but generally, professional salespeople can make the client comfortable with them on a personal level fairly quickly. The days of a corporate representative's stereotype being overbearing, pushy or crass are largely over.
And that's the rub with professional salespeople. For the most part, the individuals on any sales team can easily move to a competitive sales group and you'd never know the difference. In fact, I was involved in numerous committee style vendor review panels. In these panels, a representative group of our cooperatives' decision-makers would hear presentations from up to six prospective vendor teams in a single day. At the end of the day our committee would have dinner together to 'download' our impressions of the days presenters.
It was common to have someone from the committee remark how similar the presentations were. In fact, one gentleman challenged the group, "If you recorded every presentation that day and bleeped out the company names, who here could tell the difference between the presentations?" Upon momentary contemplation of the question, there was a wave of laughter that swept over the room. After much discussion it was agreed that every presentation was remarkably similar. Same tone, same style, same general information with very similar 'here's why our customers choose to do business with us' commentary.
The reality is that pre-sales interactions with virtually any reputable company are very similar. There is very little chance to separate yourself from your competitors with words alone.
So if most salespeople look the same before the sale is made (in the courtship phase if you will), how do buyers decide with whom to do business? Professional decision-makers use a formula to predict how well the salesperson will support them after the sale. That's right, buyers focus on what happens AFTER the sale.
And that is the disconnect between most sales training and the sellers subsequent performance. The salesperson is taught to focus on one-to-one communication styles, presentations and pre-sale meetings. The buyer is judging them on how well they predict the salesperson will perform after the sale is made. Two completely different scales.
Why do buyer's focus on the seller's post-sales behaviors? That one's easy. Because that is were the good salesperson pulls away from the pack. Pre-sales skills (selling features and making promises of post sale support) are easy to learn and express by most people. But having the power and influence to see their promises through are not so easy.
In fact, that's the real lesson I learned as a professional with buying authority: every salesperson knows how to make promises. It is the exception that can prove they have the internal influence to see them through! Successfully position yourself as a person that can benefit the buyer after the sale is made, and you'll set yourself apart from the competition and improve your sales results.
I'll tell you how to accomplish setting yourself apart in future articles. If you want to learn more now go to ww.whatbuyerswant.net
No comments:
Post a Comment