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.
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.
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