I hear this one often from B2B and B2C sales reps. It’s a conclusion that you come to after being burned by a customer. A customer makes a promise to you to call you back and then fails to follow through. Isn’t that evidence that buyers are liars? A customer says she is the decision maker but when you ask for the order she says she has to “run it by my boss”. Want more evidence? A customer assures you he has the budget, or tells you that he can get the money if you make a strong case, but your proposal dies a long slow painful death. Buyers are liars, right?
Actually I’m less interested in proving or disproving the statement and more interested in what it tells us about selling. Customers on the defensive may well lie. If you are an overly pushy sales rep or offensive, insensitive or if you fail to understand what the customer is trying to say or don’t bother to build rapport or you show no interest in the customer’s problem or go too fast or too slow or fail to qualify the buyer or if you over promise and under deliver or if you simply “don’t get it” you will put them on the defensive. That’s when they may tell a “white lie” to get rid of you.
If you are authentic with your customers most won’t lie to you. Authentic is another way of saying that “you are being yourself”. Yes, you are playing a role of the sales person but you are not the role, you are a real person playing the role. You are a real person with a personality, with values that you live by, feelings that you are attuned to, opinions that you hold, and that you don’t try to hide from your customer, they won’t lie to you. If you don’t get defensive or evasive when confronted and if you take responsibility for what you say and do, and you are well informed, dependable and caring, they won’t lie to you. If you show genuine interest in them without being intrusive, they won’t lie to you. And if you play your sales person role well, i.e. skillfully, knowledgeably and enthusiastically, while being authentic, they will not lie to you.
So, are buyers liars? A few are, no matter how you are with them. Most are not if you are truly professional and authentic.
Buyers are Liars and other Sales Myths - To learn more about this author, visit John Brennan's Website.
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John Brennan
(Visit John's Website)
John Brennan Ed.D.
Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal
Development, LLC, a training and
development firm. Interpersonal
Development has provided sales training
and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps
from over 100 companies.
A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan
received his doctorate from the University
of Rochester. His dissertation researched
the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling
Technology in training people in
interpersonal skills. While he has spent
most of his career designing or delivering
training, he was also a Vice-President of
Sales of a training and development
franchise with operations in 25 markets.
Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered
sales training in North America, Asia,
Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He
has been a guest speaker at numerous
national and regional professional
conferences.
When Microsoft wanted Best Practices
articles on sales for their web site, they
called Dr. Brennan. The results are at office.microsoft.com/e
n-us/FX011387391033.aspx
His firm’s clients have included Volvo,
The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman
Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the
Economist Group and countless small
businesses.
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