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.
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".
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