The stereotype many people have of salespeople is of an amoral hired gun. A sharp-suited, sharp-talking huckster who doesn’t care what he’s peddling as long as it brings in the money.
But in reality, the opposite is true of all truly successful salespeople: they have a real passion and belief in the products and services they sell.
In my 15 years as a consultant I’ve worked with and observed hundreds of sales people in action. I’ve seen very different selling styles and cultures, and helped salespeople from countries as diverse as Iran, the US, Lebanon, Algeria, Finland, Spain, Panama and Japan. Yet across all these countries and cultures, the very best salespeople share a real passion in the quality of their products and a sincere belief that their customers will genuinely benefit from using them. And I’ve witnessed that passion overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to win a sale, or protect an account from an undercutting competitor.
We live in a cynical world today, with everyone’s BS detector constantly set on max. And it doesn’t matter how many body language or NLP courses you’ve been on; if you aren’t being sincere - if you don’t really believe in your products with a passion; then your customers will pick this up in an instant.
Winston Churchill said it best: “Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe”.
Churchill knew the power of passion and belief. And we saw the power of his belief in his great speeches which convinced and mobilised a nation at its time of greatest need.
OK - great in theory - but what can we as sales coaches, consultants, trainers and managers practically do to harness the power of belief? How can we make sure our sales teams are really passionate about our products and services and can get that passion across to customers?
First, we need to make sure that the salespeople we hire are capable of being passionate. Emotion is often frowned upon in business - and especially in the supposedly macho business of sales. But without emotion - and the strength of character to express it; we cannot communicate our passion. We need to hire people able to maturely express their emotions. Not just to wear their heart on their sleeve; but to be able to convince with passion.
Next we need to make sure we incubate belief in our products amongst our sales teams. Don’t just train them in the technicalities of the product and in its features and benefits. Really show them what the product can do for our customers - what an impact it can have on their lives and their businesses. Use case studies and examples in training. Better still, take the salespeople out to “spend a day in the life” of their customers - they will benefit immeasurably. And make sure they keep talking to customers about how they use the product and its impact. Not just the cold, hard financial impact - but what they personally get from the product in their own words.
Finally, make sure your sales managers “walk the talk” too - and really support the passion of your sales-force. All too often it’s seen as “cool” to be ultra-hip and cynical. Yet this cynicism can kill the passion of the sales-force. They’ll become embarrassed to talk about how great they believe the product is to their peers. They’ll figure that maybe being cynical is the way to success in this organisation. And pretty soon they’ll become the cynical, smooth sales operators that customers hate.
Ian
In Praise of Passion: Selling’s Secret Weapon - To learn more about this author, visit Ian Brodie's Website.
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Ian Brodie
(Visit Ian's Website)
Ian Brodie is the Managing Director of
Lighthouse Business Consulting - a
management consulting and business
advisory firm specialised in helping
professional service firms achieve their
growth objectives.
Lighthouse Business Consulting is a
management consulting and business
advisory firm specialised in helping
professional services firms (legal,
accountancy, consultancy) achieve their
business growth objectives.
We work with the partners of law,
accounting, consulting and other
professional services firms to help them
focus their strategies, get control of
their sales pipelines, improve the way
they sell, and get better results from
their business development activities.
Ian is the editor of
Rainmaker Resources - the leading
website for Professional Services Business
Development. He also writes regularly on
the topics of Sales and Business Growth
strategy at the S
ales Excellence Blog.
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