"Whole-Brain" Selling

“Although many of us may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think.”

- Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight, A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey (London, England, Penguin, 2006) 17.


Often, selling is described as the combination of art and science, or more aptly, consisting of functional activities made more or less effective by the application of interpersonal skills. But what does that really mean to us as sales professionals? What “mix” of art and science is optimum and in what circumstances should any mix be applied?

In her book, My Stroke of Insight, Dr. Taylor describes the experience of having a stroke and the long journey of recovering from the stroke. What makes Dr. Taylor’s story so compelling is the fact that she is a neuroanatomist (brain scientist) who was working at Harvard Medical School at the time of her stroke. Dr. Taylor understood better than most, what was happening to her brain as the left hemisphere shut down, drowned in a major hemorrhage, causing her to not be able to walk, talk, read, write or recall her life’s memories. During her eight-year recovery, she documented not only the experience, but provided a lesson in the interrelatedness of the left and right hemisphere’s of the human brain and insight into how we might choose to have those hemispheres work for us as thinking, feeling beings.

In a simple but easy-to-understand explanation of how the human brain functions, Dr. Taylor details how the left hemisphere tends to deal with the logic, organization, details and language linear thinking. The right hemisphere complements the left by constructing a big picture of our interconnectedness with the rest of the world and, unlike the left which divides our sense of time into past, present and future, the right deals only with the immediate present and allows for spontaneity and imagination, free of inhibition and judgment. Our right brains suspend judgment of good and bad, right and wrong, while our left brains are all about making judgments and organizing all the information available to us. Left is linear and logical, right is relaxed and related. Viewing our brain as two complementary halves still allows for the distinction of what each half contributes to the seamless processing of the world in which we operate.

This “separate-but-equal” operation of the two hemispheres of our brains might just reinforce the necessity for engaging in call planning activity to prepare us for improved call execution on sales calls. By applying more left-brained effort during the call planning aspect of selling, we might free ourselves for a more satisfying and effective interpersonal interaction with our customers on a sales call. Perhaps a defined process for optimal call execution would create a road map with which we can navigate the extremely complex avenues of human communication and emerge with better-than-satisfactory results. Lacking that left-brain planning activity, we risk needing to engage more of that functional “science” during our sales call and potentially robbing us of our natural inclination to want to pay more attention to our customer as a person.

With planning drawing heavily on our left brains, we can take the time and make the effort to thoughtfully and purposefully rehearse the sales call and explore alternative paths to take, precise words to use and outcomes we seek to achieve. Once completed, that planning exercise offers maximum flexibility to work with our right brains and engage our customer on a more human level. Sales process and supporting models that simplify our understanding of the complexity of human communications and decision-making can go a long way toward enhancing the efficiency of call planning, which in turn enhances the effectiveness of a sales call. This observation also seems to nicely complement the adage that “if we fail to plan, we plan to fail.” By using our left and right brains together it results in making the most of the Art and Science of selling.

Ed Albertson
Vice President, National Accounts
Carew International, Inc.

Golf is a Lot Like Sales

I have a lot of friends that are sales professionals who would say that golf should be part of the sales process, but analogous to sales? Yes and here is why.

I think everyone would concur that the degree of difficulty associated with differentiating products or services has increased dramatically over the past decade. What once was a clear differentiator for a company is now just another “me too” feature. Yesterdays “a-has” are today’s ticket to the game. The margin of differentiation is now razor thin for many companies; and, given no clear way to differentiate, people will default to price as the tie breaker.

It has always been true, but now more than ever, the sales person can be the clear differentiating factor that tips the scales in favor of your product or service at a slightly higher price. I am not talking about a huge margin of victory that is required to accomplish this. If the sales professional can gain even the slightest of advantage, it might be enough to win the day. This is where the golf analogy comes into play.

Through the month of April, well known golfer Ernie Els was the top money winner on the PGA Tour checking in with a little over $3.1 million in winnings in 2010. An equally well known golfer (although for different reasons) is John Daly. Generally recognized as pro golf’s bad boy, John has earned just under $46,000 in Tour winnings thus far in 2010. I guess that isn’t a huge surprise, but here is where it gets interesting. Through the first 4 months of 2010 Ernie was averaging 69.84 strokes per round of PGA tournament golf. During that same time period John Daly was averaging 71.53 strokes per round. Ernie Els’ average round of golf was only 1.69 strokes per round better than John Daly’s yet he had earned over 67 times as much money! In golf, as in sales, it is pretty clear that even the smallest of differences can make a HUGE impact on financial results.

Can your sales team be a couple of strokes better than the competition? Just like the game where even a couple of strokes can make the difference between winning big and obscurity, a couple of strokes difference between you and your competition may be all that is required. How do you pick up those extra strokes in golf? You hire a coach and you practice, practice, practice. It should be no different in sales. If you are not giving your sales team the opportunity to sharpen their sales skills, coaching them on the process, and allowing them to practice in a safe environment you are missing out on a huge opportunity.

Will your sales team be the Ernie Els of your competitive arena or the John Day? The choice is up to you!

Does Anyone Really C.A.R.E.?

“People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Dr. John Maxwell
(A Business Week best-selling author, Maxwell has written three books that have sold more than a million copies: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Developing the Leader Within You, and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader.)

Business relationships have dramatically changed with the introduction of 24-7 information, global competition and technology that allows rapid innovation and duplication. Combined, these forces all reduce the differentiation of products and services even as solutions become increasingly interconnected and complicated. Layered atop those factors is the heightened sense of risk-aversion in the business world. Add in the churn of functions and roles and suddenly business relationships don’t “feel” the same way they used to. It’s almost as if those relationships have lost their value for both the buyer and the seller. The truth is, relationships are as important as ever, but the dynamics of what makes them valuable have changed.

More than ever, our customers need to know we really care about them, their companies and the future of both. It’s up to us as sales professionals to take the lead with developing our business relationships and we can best do that if we continually and consistently are:

C onfirming what we both (customer and seller) know about each other. Doing so limits those false assumptions we can easily make when we lack the facts about each other and from which we can build a solid business relationship. Typically, this would take place at the beginning of the business relationship, but with time comes change and it could be very beneficial to reconfirm what we think we know, as well.

A sking for information we don’t know about customer. Imagine how flattering it is to our customers for us to demonstrate our sincere interest in them, their business, their products and services, their competition and their customers! Relevant questions do just that and have the effect of paving the way for the possible solutions we might offer.

R evealing what our customer might like to know about us. Once we’ve established an understanding of our customer’s environment, we can begin to consider what appropriate solutions we have that might be of interest to our customers. Targeting solutions to customer needs isn’t new, but effectively doing so is and requires our understanding of more than simple needs. We need to be able to help customers “see around the corner” based upon our expertise, providing a knowledge resource that is very differentiating.

E xpanding the potential benefits available to both of us and our companies. As we learn more about our customers and they learn more about us, we both benefit from an expanded business relationship that holds far greater potential than originally conceived by either of us. As the relationship grows, so does opportunity for both buyer and seller, and that interdependence is a more productive state for both, as well.

Though business is in a constant state of change, the need for customers to know their sales professionals understand the environment occupied by the customer remains constant and our success depends upon our ability to show we really CARE.

“People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Dr. John Maxwell (A Business Week best-selling author, Maxwell has written three books that have sold more than a million copies: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Developing the Leader Within You, and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader.)

Business relationships have dramatically changed with the introduction of 24-7 information, global competition and technology that allows rapid innovation and duplication. Combined, these forces all reduce the differentiation of products and services even as solutions become increasingly interconnected and complicated. Layered atop those factors is the heightened sense of risk-aversion in the business world. Add in the churn of functions and roles and suddenly business relationships don’t “feel” the same way they used to. It’s almost as if those relationships have lost their value for both the buyer and the seller. The truth is, relationships are as important as ever, but the dynamics of what makes them valuable have changed.

More than ever, our customers need to know we really care about them, their companies and the future of both. It’s up to us as sales professionals to take the lead with developing our business relationships and we can best do that if we continually and consistently are:

Confirming what we both (customer and seller) know about each other. Doing so limits those false assumptions we can easily make when we lack the facts about each other and from which we can build a solid business relationship. Typically, this would take place at the beginning of the business relationship, but with time comes change and it could be very beneficial to reconfirm what we think we know, as well.

Asking for information we don’t know about customer. Imagine how flattering it is to our customers for us to demonstrate our sincere interest in them, their business, their products and services, their competition and their customers! Relevant questions do just that and have the effect of paving the way for the possible solutions we might offer.

Revealing what our customer might like to know about us. Once we’ve established an understanding of our customer’s environment, we can begin to consider what appropriate solutions we have that might be of interest to our customers. Targeting solutions to customer needs isn’t new, but effectively doing so is and requires our understanding of more than simple needs. We need to be able to help customers “see around the corner” based upon our expertise, providing a knowledge resource that is very differentiating.

Expanding the potential benefits available to both of us and our companies. As we learn more about our customers and they learn more about us, we both benefit from an expanded business relationship that holds far greater potential than originally conceived by either of us. As the relationship grows, so does opportunity for both buyer and seller, and that interdependence is a more productive state for both, as well.

Though business is in a constant state of change, the need for customers to know their sales professionals understand the environment occupied by the customer remains constant and our success depends upon our ability to show we really CARE.

Call Planning for Call Success!

Ed Albertson

Vice President, National Accounts

Carew International, Inc.

“An athlete may run ten thousand miles in order to prepare for one hundred yards. Quantity gives experience.”

Ray Bradbury (1920 – ) American writer


“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning." Thomas Edison

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Dwight Eisenhower

“Hoping consumes as much energy as planning." Unknown sales professional

As sales professionals depart a sales training experience, one of the tools they typically take with them is some sort of call planning form. That form is accompanied with the best of intentions to use it in preparing for their next sales call. Of course, we all have heard where that road that is “paved with good intentions” leads and it is not a desirable destination.

Perhaps we’d engage in call planning more often if we paused to understand why call planning is so valuable to us and to our customers:

1) Planning focuses us on an outcome (Purpose);
2) Planning provides us with rehearsal time (Practice);
3) Planning reinforces our skills and process(Perfection);
4) Planning leads to improved results (Payoff).

Focusing on an outcome demands we consider what the purpose of the call might be, both for us and for our customers. That purpose becomes our guide for handling any deviation from the plan and sustains our discipline to remain on track despite interruptions, objections or unexpected reactions. Considering the limited exposure we have with each other in today’s business environment, being purposeful with time and others’ is perhaps the most considerate and strategic thing we can do in a business relationship.

Every skill-based human activity benefits from practice, be it an athletic endeavor or an artistic performance. Practice rehearses the mind and the body to function in unison and to produce consistent, superior results. Practice produces improvement in skills and provides a greater latitude within the discipline of process than without it. Sales calls have a smoother and richer quality for sales professional and customer alike because uncertainty is reduced and relaxed environment of confidence leads to a level of creativity that is obscured when we cannot escape doubt.

Skill improvement is typically experienced incrementally and in small, manageable steps toward perfection. Beyond practice, call planning with a planning form reinforces the skills learned, eventually resulting in those skills becoming good call execution habits, call after call after call. The very act of capturing our strategy and tactics in one place disciplines us to put into action the process we have learned.

Finally, every bit of data on the subject indicates that planning for anything always leads to better results. The payoff to a sales professional is measured in better use of limited and valuable time, improved outcomes, and further development of competitive skills. As we examine the other benefits of planning, it is apparent that each is inextricably related to the other, increasing the combined value of all.

Perhaps the greatest “take-away” from a training experience is not the skills we learn, but the application of those skills to produce the results we seek. Call planning takes us much farther down that road and deserves a second look from us in our pursuit of sales excellence.

Earning a Higher "Interest Rate" from Your Customers

Ed Albertson
Vice President - National Accounts
Carew International, Inc.

“Would you persuade, speak of
Interest, not of Reason.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
American statesman, scientist and printer


Telling versus selling: the great dilemma for sales professionals has rooted its way into the very foundation of human nature. A variety of research studies has consistently proven and quantified the fact that human beings are overwhelmingly self-focused and our perceptual orientation routinely reflects that fact. We can not help but see the world through a lens that first filters how any incoming information affects us and primarily in terms of what pain it may cause or what pleasure it may produce.

Such a self-centered preoccupation often drives sales professionals to resort to logic with their customers as they outline the features and advantages of their offerings. Assured that they are acting within the bounds of reason, they are thus stymied when the customer’s reaction to their efforts is, at best mildly positive and at worst, defensive and possibly hostile. Faced with such resistance, the sales professional draws on even broader substantiation and worsens the entire situation. Instead of resolving problems for customers, new problems are created and mostly of an interpersonal nature. A sales professional can literally be telling their customer not to be positively influenced by the sales professional’s behaviors and words.

However, the selling process can be made far more effective if the sales professional has a conscious awareness of this aspect of human nature and considers the consequences of acquiescing to its effects. Proactively employing behaviors like listening, acknowledging, and exploring as part of the selling process demonstrates a sincere desire to understand a customer’s point of view and projects the empathy that builds trust, credibility and rapport in a relationship. Through the effort of making these “deposits in the relationship bank,” a sales professional can reap a higher rate of “interest” by their customer, both figuratively, and literally.

Soft Sell versus Hard Sell

Chuck Terry
Executive Vice President - CSO
Carew International, Inc.

The terms “soft sell” and “hard sell” have been around for years. The marketing definition of “soft sell” can be summed up as a campaign or message that uses a more subtle, casual or friendly sales message. By contrast, the marketing definition of “hard sell” may be defined as a message or campaign that uses a more direct, forceful, and overt sales message. Unfortunately, the combination of the word “soft” with the word “sell” has left many sales managers feeling that a rep who “soft sells” customers is somehow less effective than his hard charging, fire breathing, “hard sell” counterpart. Perhaps we should refine the definition a bit further.

The Business Dictionary defines “soft sell” as a “sales philosophy oriented towards identifying the customers expressed and tacit needs and wants, through exploratory questions and careful listening.” The same source defines “hard Sell” as a type of selling “which promotes the application of psychological pressure to generate a relatively quick sale.” I don’t think many companies in today’s business environment would have much trouble quickly picking the “soft sell” approach as the most desirable process for their sales teams to employ. Most of the business leaders I meet with, who are looking to train their sales teams, are asking that they learn to sell in a more “consultative” manner, the definition of which looks amazingly similar to the definition of “soft sell” given above!

At Carew International we would break down the key elements of “soft selling” or “consultative selling” as follows:

1) Building Better Relationships: Most sales people I come into contact with are pretty good at building relationships that result in many of their customers becoming friends. This is a great skill to possess but one that must be enhanced to become a truly consultative or “soft” seller. The customer must trust you as an advisor that can bring value to their business in order to ask the type of deeper exploratory questions that identify the “needs behind the needs”.

2) Active Listening Skills: In order to truly understand a customer’s expressed and tacit needs a successful “soft seller” must learn to listen for understanding versus listening for opportunity. This requires leaving your own operating reality at the door and immersing yourself in the customers operating reality. Of all the skills we teach in our sales workshops, this skill takes the most practice and yields the best results once mastered.

3) Better Exploratory Skills: To understand your customer’s needs at a deeper level, a successful consultative or “soft” seller must learn to ask better questions. Asking better questions are, of course, a wild over simplification of the obvious however, we defined that in order to “soft sell” you need to indentify not only expressed, but tacit needs as well. Most successful sales people can uncover stated needs but uncovering tacit needs is a much more complex undertaking. A tacit need is defined as a need that is difficult to communicate to another person through writing or verbalizing. A good example would be trying to explain to someone how swim. In order to become proficient in “soft selling” you must learn to ask exploratory questions that enable the customer to partner with you in understanding those tacit needs that are much tougher to verbalize.

There you have it, a contrast of the skills required to successfully “soft sell” versus the “application of psychological pressure to generate relatively quick sale”, otherwise known as a “hard sell.” In my book, the better approach is really no contest.