The NEW Human Nature of Sales

By Chuck Terry
Executive Vice PResident and CSO, Carew International, Inc.

Wikipedia defines Human Nature as the concept that there are a set of characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, which all "normal" human beings have in common. Most sales processes adhere to that philosophy, gearing sales tactics to capitalize on the commonality of all humans. It makes sense, right? Won’t most "normal" human beings react to any given sales tactic in a similar manner? I believe the answer is yes… and no. There are certain human characteristics that will be consistent across many individuals and situations, but beware of utilizing "one-size-fits-all" sales processes with "scripted" responses to your customers. That approach is as outdated as the typewriter.

Let’s examine a very common example of a classic "human nature" scripted sales tactic. This is a fairly well known tactic for handling objections called "Feel, Felt, Found." When confronted with an objection such as price, your response would be "I know exactly how you feel, a lot of people felt the same way about the price before they took the time to really learn about this product. Once they had the chance to understand in more detail what this product could do for them, they actually found the price to be quite reasonable." This is only one example, but I think you get the point. It is a scripted response, designed to accomplish two things. First, it is supposed to show your empathy for the customer. Second, it is designed to tap into the customer’s "human nature," based on the supposition that your customer wants to feel like everyone else. The last car salesman that used that one on me missed a sale.

The fact is "human nature" has changed. The new human nature drives us to great lengths NOT to be like everyone else. Why would you want to leverage sales tactics and scripts that try to pre-suppose what will be effective based upon how "most people" will react, when more and more of us aren’t anything like "most people?" Burger King was ahead of their time when they came up with the slogan "Have it your way." I don’t want my Whopper just like everyone else, I want it exactly the way I want it. For years, Dell has allowed their customers to customize their computer to their exact specifications. That business model reflects the new human nature. Each of us is unique. We want to be treated as unique, and we expect the companies we do business with to understand and respond to that fact.

It is time to throw out the old "Feel, Felt, Found" one-size-fits-all canned sales tactic, and adopt a process that allows us to understand exactly what our customers are trying to tell us. We should make sure we are listening carefully to understand how their problems are unique to them and partner with them to create unique solutions that solve their problems exactly the way they are experiencing them.

Take the time to listen carefully, acknowledge your concern and thoroughly explore the situation to verify your understanding before offering solutions. This is how we can meet the challenges of today’s customers. We all want to have it our way, that’s just "human nature." Learn more by reading "What’s the Real Objection"

Setting Higher Expectations: 3 Ways to Differentiate Ourselves

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

As the products and services we offer our customers become more commoditized due to technology, information and globalization, differentiating those products and services, as well as our company and ourselves, becomes more of a challenge. While I am not suggesting that products and services have no inherent differences, it is the perception of everything being a commodity that is particularly troublesome. For many of us in the sales profession, making a difference seems to rely more and more on being the difference.

In a recent experiment, Dan Ariely of Duke University and author of Predictably Irrational, and a team of scientists gave volunteers identical dummy pills (placebos) before and after an electric shock. They told a certain population of their test subjects that the pills were analgesics costing $2.50 each and told others that the pills cost 10 cents. Both populations claimed to experience pain relief, but there was a significant difference between the two groups’ experiences. More of those receiving the expensive placebo reported pain relief (85%) compared to fewer (60%) among the ten cent placebo recipients. Coupled with other, similar experiments, the findings seem to indicate that the higher the expectations, the greater the pain relief. Said another way, setting higher expectations in a person’s mind tends to produce higher results as well!

With the power of perception in mind, we sales professionals can set positive, highly personal, and differentiating expectations for our customers by leveraging our Attitude, Energy and Appearance.

Sales Professionals are typically the first point of contact for most of our customers. It is primarily through this level of contact that strong and enduring relationships between sales person and customer, as well as their two companies, are built. With this in mind, a number of adjectives can be used to describe the appropriate attitude for all interactions with customers: knowledgeable, positive, professional, confident, competent, friendly, caring, etc. It is, after all, the sales person who is best positioned to make a customer feel important and valued. Customers who perceive our positive attitude have an expectation of capability and satisfying outcomes. A positive-oriented attitude will win out over a negative one every time.

Inextricably connected with our attitude is our energy. Energy is our personal investment in the relationship with our customers. Some sales professionals are able to sustain a consistently upbeat, high level of focus, alertness, and confidence throughout an entire day. Others struggle to sustain these dynamic qualities for a single sales call. Regardless of the ease or challenge in sustaining energy, the impact on our customer is what is important. It is the responsibility of a sales professional to impart every customer with the belief that we gave it our all, every day and every call.

With all the emphasis in our sensory-heightened world upon what we see, personal appearance plays a magnified role in setting customer expectations. From our grooming, to our attire and accessories, to our posture and body language, most sales professionals would agree that appearance makes a profound and lasting impact in our interpersonal communications. Our appearance is linked closely with verbal and non-verbal communication, and tends to reflect our overall attitude about ourselves and our position with respect to others. Key to maintaining our attitude and energy is a congruent appearance associated with self-confidence and professionalism.

While technological advances, information proliferation and mass interconnectedness reduce the perceived differentiation of our products and services, we sales professionals have sole control over our attitude, energy and appearance as we interact with our customers. Using these tools to set high expectations can and will make a significant difference in a crowded market place.

Read more about Attitude, Energy and Appearance, by downloading Carew's white paper, "Your Image of Difference".

5 More Tips for Business Growth in Tough Economic Times

By Chuck Terry
Executive Vice President & CSO, Carew International, Inc.

In a previous blog, I shared five tips for building your business in tough economic times. Since that proved to be a popular posting, I thought I would revisit the subject with five more suggestions:

1. Read Every Day- Read your local papers, the Wall Street Journal, and sign up for news postings on the internet. Look for articles about your prospects or that may be of interest to your prospects. Then share these articles with your prospects to let them know you are thinking about them and their business. Even if they are not actively in the spending mode, your continued interest in helping them will pay dividends down the road. This is also a great way to maintain frequency of contact, while adding value.
   
   
2. Meet Two New People Per Week- Set a goal for yourself of meeting and adding to your business network at least two new people each week. Ask your current contacts to introduce you to people they know, attend networking meetings, talk to other parents at your kids’ sports events; but find a way to meet AT LEAST TWO people a week that you can network with professionally for MUTUAL benefit. Although quality is more important than quantity, the more people you meet each week, the better. Make two new quality contacts per week your minimum discipline.
   
   
3. Get Creative- When times are tough, you need to be flexible and also more creative in how you approach your business. These are great times to find ways to stand out from the crowd. It might be creative pricing strategies. It might be creative marketing strategies. It might be creative selling tactics. Or it may be all of those and more. Challenge yourself to “get out of the box” and try some new approaches. A colleague of mine often recant the story of “The Watermelon Man,” a business owner who got creative in order to engage his top prospect, who had been avoiding him. He began personally delivering a watermelon a day to his prospect until finally; unable to control his curiosity any longer, the prospect told his assistant he wanted to meet “The Watermelon Man.” They had a good laugh and “The Watermelon Man” got the business. Get creative and have some fun with it!
   
   
4. Use Online Networks to Reconnect- Online social networks make it easier than ever to re-establish lost business connections. Go back through your old client files and look for all the people you know, but have lost contact with because they are no longer with your client organization. On a site like LinkedIn, finding these individuals is quick and easy. I recently invested a couple of hours to find past contacts from one particular client organization. As a result, I reconnected with ten people who had moved on to new companies. I did not reach out so that I could immediately ask them for business, but because these are people I admire and respect. Maybe I can help them, or perhaps they might help me someday. The only thing I know for sure is that nothing will happen if I don’t stay connected!
   
   
5. Set Activity Goals in Addition to Financial Goals- When times are tough and you aren’t having as much success closing business, it is critical to celebrate the success you are having in moving closer to getting business. It is tough to stay motivated in a sales slump and the last six months could put ANYONE into a bit of a slump. Set goals that you can reach daily; goals you know will eventually result in closing business, and then celebrate attaining those goals. It will help you stay positive, not to mention keep your sales cycle momentum moving in the right direction. I am not talking about rationalizing missing sales targets; rather, adding new ones that help you stay focused on the right activities during tough times.

There you have it, five more ways to keep growing during tough times. I will leave you with this quote from Henry Ford, “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”

Carrot or Stick? Sales Leaders Should Weigh Tactics Carefully

By Chuck Terry
Executive Vice President & CSO, Carew International, Inc.

At this point, we are all painfully aware of the impact of the current economy. But if misery loves company, we may take comfort in knowing that the challenges we face -- poor sales, lay-offs, cut backs -- weigh on the hearts and minds of people throughout our organization. What is a sales professional going to tell their sales manager in these times when they don’t make plan? What is the sales manager going to tell the sales vice president? What does the sales vice president tell the CEO? What does the CEO tell the Board? What does the Board tell investors?

So here’s the burning question: When sales are in the tank as a result of a worldwide recession, how should sales leaders respond… carrot or stick? Our employees have been stressed, over worked, and forced to rationalize diminished performance -- many for the first times in their careers. As we struggle to overcome hurdles and maximize sales, are we giving proper attention to the psyche and self confidence of our people? How do we keep the sales team motivated and engaged? Even in the most pervasive economic conditions, each situation needs to be addressed individually. But on the whole, I contend that a little empathy is in order.

Tom Peters once wrote that no company wants to hang the motto over their door that says “XYZ Corporation, We’re No Worse Than Anyone Else.” Yet over the past year, many companies were LUCKY to be performing to that standard. While we have all been busy making legitimate rationalizations to those upstream from us, have we forgotten to cut ourselves and those downstream some slack?

We need to make the effort to reach out to those around us that have been operating under EXTREME stress levels for an extended length of time and just say thanks. Thanks for hanging in there through the tough times; thanks for caring so much about the business; thanks for staying loyal; and thanks to your families for the sacrifices they have made. A little appreciation goes a long way.

Signs are out there that the current economic deep freeze is beginning to thaw. And as the economy continues to improve, we will need our entire team to be positive and focused. I saw a t-shirt last weekend that said, “The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves.” It made me laugh; but it also made me think. Let’s all stop the beatings, show some sincere appreciation to those around us, and focus on the opportunity that is just around the next bend.

The sales team is not be alone in our suffering, but we do tend to be the point of direct impact. If we as sales leaders help ease the pain and focus on positive outcomes, our sales professionals will have more energy to do the same.

Do You Fit In?

By Jeff Seeley, CEO, Carew International, Inc.

There are infinite books, television shows, and “experts” who will tell you how and why you should FIT IN! There is even Mr. Blackwell’s book on what to wear… to a baptism, wedding, or even a birthday party in the Hampton’s; all for the purpose of fitting in with what everyone else will be wearing. But this is not a blog about clothing. It is about choosing. Choosing to be like the rest or choosing to stand out.

I don’t want to minimize the risk or difficulty of standing out. Choose incorrectly and you could look like a buffoon, or worse. Say or do the wrong thing and you could be courting disaster. But ultimately, the risk is worth the reward. The reality is that fitting in makes you look like the same as the rest of the cast, including your competition. Don’t we all need to stand out to get the business? Why would we expend energy to fit in?

Jim Gilmore, author of the Experience Economy, identifies a key diagnostic for the sales professional -- a value differentiation litmus test, if you will. He poses the question, if there was an admission charge for your time with the customer, what would the customer be willing to pay for admission? I think the more fundamental question is who should be willing to pay for the sales call… you or your customer?

If your answer is that you (the sales professional) should be paying, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you’re fitting in brilliantly. Congratulations. The bad news is you don’t value your own contribution to your customers on sales calls, so chances are neither do your clients. You are going to have a tough time getting attention from current or prospective clients, much less winning their business.

If you answered that the customer should pay for your input, you’ve got a great start toward value differentiation. Take it a step farther to find out how much the customer would pay and why they value your time. This is the stuff that great sales performance is made of! Now you’re a STAND OUT!