Selling Is About Helping People
Selling Is About Helping People
I don’t know if children mention these professions because they are conditioned by their parents and TV, or if deep down inside they are predisposed to helping people and know that these jobs will allow them to do that. Funny how life changes people as they grow older. Ask any teenager what they want to be and I’ll bet you the list is totally different than their pre-pubescent one. Ask any adult if what they are doing now is what they said they wanted to be when they grew up and most will say no. I know this is a fact for many sales people because I ask my students this question when I do sales training. In fact, very few sales people say they actually planned to be in sales. Sales people frequently got into sales by accident or through some unplanned event, as opposed to a designed career move or through a university degree on the subject (which rarely exist). But now that they are in sales, here comes the hard part – Do they STILL want to help people? If you are in sales, do YOU want to help your customers?
I’ve met many sales people over the years and I have found that far too many of them don’t know that they are, or should be, in the business of helping people. Yet, sales is, in fact, a job that should help people, just like a doctor, lawyer, teacher, nurse, astronaut, etc. Sales reps who never learned this valuable lesson, or just plain forgot it, focus more on making the sale than on what the customer needs. By doing so, they neglect the needs of the customer and direct their energies toward closing the deal and earning their commission. This is the worst way to sell. Today, customers are smarter, wiser and more informed. They are looking for a business partner who can help them make intelligent decisions for themselves and their business. If your focus is on making money, hitting your quota or going to the President’s Club, you will stand out like a sore thumb in a very negative way.
The basic concept of sales is quite simple – deliver quality products or services that match what the customer needs at a fair price. The hard part is all the up-front work that is necessary to get to this final goal. What customers want from sales people today is fairly straight forward. They want, and need, to be helped. Here are a few ideas on how you can help your customers.
1. Be a value-added problem solver. When a prospect hear’s a sales person give their “pitch”, which is pretty much a dump of all their features, what they are really hearing is someone who only cares about themselves and what’s best for them. What they want is someone they can rely on who is genuinely interested in helping solve the customer’s problems. By providing help, advice and consultation to your customers, you put yourself in that position. Once you build that level of trust, they will keep coming to you for advice. More importantly, they’ll keep coming to you to buy your product or service. Help them solve their problems.
2. Be interested in their bottom line. If your customer senses that your motivation is to earn a larger commission or hit your quarterly quota or qualify for some sort of sales contest, you’re history. What customers want is someone who is interested in the customer’s bottom line, not the sales person’s. By building trust and a relationship the customer may, in fact, care about what you get out of the sale as well. But that cannot be your focus or goal. They’re not there to serve your needs. They are there to get help solving their problems and improving their bottom line. Statements such as, “It doesn’t matter to me how many widgets you purchase or when you actually make the purpose. It’s more important that our widgets solve your problem and you get what you need,” go much further than saying “I really could use this order by the end of the month so I make my quota.”
3. Be easy to do business with. We’ve all had the “joy” of dealing with companies who’ve mastered the art of putting the pain in making a sale. They run you around in circles, cause avoidable and unnecessary delays in the transaction, have nonsensical contract terms, and more. And all you want to do is give them your hard-earned money to buy their product. Many companies need to streamline and simplify the way they transact and interact with their clients. You must be easy to do business with. Get rid of roadblocks, delays, silly requirements (“You can’t upgrade your service unless you first do….”), stupid return policies, and anything that makes it difficult and frustrating to deal with you. Help them do business with you the easiest way possible.
4. Help them make decisions. Customers don’t want to be sold to, but they do want help making decisions. Here’s a real tough one – Help them make the right decisions. How? Educate them, be honest with them (even if you recommend purchasing a product you do not carry), show them alternatives, stop confusing them with industry terms and rhetoric, and see idea #3 above. If you do these things and more, you’ll also position yourself as a value-added problem solver (see idea #1). Don’t simply tell them what to do, help them in the decision making process with good advice and counsel.
5. Be part of their team. You might not get invited to be this close to your customer or their business, but it is a worthwhile effort to try to be considered part of their team. This is a result of all the previous ideas. Once you build trust and establish a relationship with your client, you start to become part of their team, their business “family”. You get invited to meetings that outsiders would usually never attend. You get introduced to other members of the family. You get asked your advice on things you don’t even offer. You get treated like, well, family. This is a rare but wonderful opportunity that is a worthwhile goal for all sales people. Being part of your customer’s team will help make your customer more loyal to you and your company.
Follow this advice and you will be a true helper. You’ll rank right up there with doctors, lawyers, teachers, policemen, firemen, and all those other proud professions that help people. Who knows, maybe some day when a child is asked what he wants to be when he grows up, he’ll say he wants to be a salesman.
Good luck and good selling!
Russ Lombardo
Selling Is About Helping People - To learn more about this author, visit Russ Lombardo's Website.
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When you were a young child do you remember people asking you what you wanted to be when you grew up? Do you remember what you said? If you have your own children and ask them this same question, what will they say? The typical answer from an average kid is something like doctor, lawyer, teacher, policeman, fireman, and the like. What do these professions have in common? They all help people. A child might even say an athlete, who helps people by entertaining them. Or even an astronaut, who helps people by furthering the progress of mankind as a whole. Although in the latest news, I’m not sure that animal-abusing athletes and drunken astronauts are good role models these days, but I digress.
I don’t know if children mention these professions because they are conditioned by their parents and TV, or if deep down inside they are predisposed to helping people and know that these jobs will allow them to do that. Funny how life changes people as they grow older. Ask any teenager what they want to be and I’ll bet you the list is totally different than their pre-pubescent one. Ask any adult if what they are doing now is what they said they wanted to be when they grew up and most will say no. I know this is a fact for many sales people because I ask my students this question when I do sales training. In fact, very few sales people say they actually planned to be in sales. Sales people frequently got into sales by accident or through some unplanned event, as opposed to a designed career move or through a university degree on the subject (which rarely exist). But now that they are in sales, here comes the hard part – Do they STILL want to help people? If you are in sales, do YOU want to help your customers?
I’ve met many sales people over the years and I have found that far too many of them don’t know that they are, or should be, in the business of helping people. Yet, sales is, in fact, a job that should help people, just like a doctor, lawyer, teacher, nurse, astronaut, etc. Sales reps who never learned this valuable lesson, or just plain forgot it, focus more on making the sale than on what the customer needs. By doing so, they neglect the needs of the customer and direct their energies toward closing the deal and earning their commission. This is the worst way to sell. Today, customers are smarter, wiser and more informed. They are looking for a business partner who can help them make intelligent decisions for themselves and their business. If your focus is on making money, hitting your quota or going to the President’s Club, you will stand out like a sore thumb in a very negative way.
The basic concept of sales is quite simple – deliver quality products or services that match what the customer needs at a fair price. The hard part is all the up-front work that is necessary to get to this final goal. What customers want from sales people today is fairly straight forward. They want, and need, to be helped. Here are a few ideas on how you can help your customers.
1. Be a value-added problem solver. When a prospect hear’s a sales person give their “pitch”, which is pretty much a dump of all their features, what they are really hearing is someone who only cares about themselves and what’s best for them. What they want is someone they can rely on who is genuinely interested in helping solve the customer’s problems. By providing help, advice and consultation to your customers, you put yourself in that position. Once you build that level of trust, they will keep coming to you for advice. More importantly, they’ll keep coming to you to buy your product or service. Help them solve their problems.
2. Be interested in their bottom line. If your customer senses that your motivation is to earn a larger commission or hit your quarterly quota or qualify for some sort of sales contest, you’re history. What customers want is someone who is interested in the customer’s bottom line, not the sales person’s. By building trust and a relationship the customer may, in fact, care about what you get out of the sale as well. But that cannot be your focus or goal. They’re not there to serve your needs. They are there to get help solving their problems and improving their bottom line. Statements such as, “It doesn’t matter to me how many widgets you purchase or when you actually make the purpose. It’s more important that our widgets solve your problem and you get what you need,” go much further than saying “I really could use this order by the end of the month so I make my quota.”
3. Be easy to do business with. We’ve all had the “joy” of dealing with companies who’ve mastered the art of putting the pain in making a sale. They run you around in circles, cause avoidable and unnecessary delays in the transaction, have nonsensical contract terms, and more. And all you want to do is give them your hard-earned money to buy their product. Many companies need to streamline and simplify the way they transact and interact with their clients. You must be easy to do business with. Get rid of roadblocks, delays, silly requirements (“You can’t upgrade your service unless you first do….”), stupid return policies, and anything that makes it difficult and frustrating to deal with you. Help them do business with you the easiest way possible.
4. Help them make decisions. Customers don’t want to be sold to, but they do want help making decisions. Here’s a real tough one – Help them make the right decisions. How? Educate them, be honest with them (even if you recommend purchasing a product you do not carry), show them alternatives, stop confusing them with industry terms and rhetoric, and see idea #3 above. If you do these things and more, you’ll also position yourself as a value-added problem solver (see idea #1). Don’t simply tell them what to do, help them in the decision making process with good advice and counsel.
5. Be part of their team. You might not get invited to be this close to your customer or their business, but it is a worthwhile effort to try to be considered part of their team. This is a result of all the previous ideas. Once you build trust and establish a relationship with your client, you start to become part of their team, their business “family”. You get invited to meetings that outsiders would usually never attend. You get introduced to other members of the family. You get asked your advice on things you don’t even offer. You get treated like, well, family. This is a rare but wonderful opportunity that is a worthwhile goal for all sales people. Being part of your customer’s team will help make your customer more loyal to you and your company.
Follow this advice and you will be a true helper. You’ll rank right up there with doctors, lawyers, teachers, policemen, firemen, and all those other proud professions that help people. Who knows, maybe some day when a child is asked what he wants to be when he grows up, he’ll say he wants to be a salesman.
Good luck and good selling!
Russ Lombardo
Selling Is About Helping People - To learn more about this author, visit Russ Lombardo's Website.
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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