Stop Making it about you- and watch those sales come!

Guest Contributor: Albert Luk
Albert's Posts - Albert's Site


I am undergoing quite a radical change in my life lately. After many years of practicing for myself, I have joined a client of mine in an executive position. Instead of selling to small businesses, I am now on the receiving end of being sold to by companies targeting SME (we would be described as a medium sized business). Sadly, this has meant parting ways with many of my clients. It has also meant that I have taken a front-row seat as some of my ex-SMB clients try to find new lawyers. I see the experiences and challenges they face finding service providers who deal in trust. I wanted to share a story and observation with you (on a no-names basis of course).

Fundamentally, your ability to sell to the SMB market depends on establishing trust and the quickest turn-off for any entrepreneur is making the sale all about you. How do you know if the sale is all about you?

An ex-client wrote me two weeks ago saying that he hated lawyers. The reason? Please, no lawyer jokes. To paraphrase, he did not feel that any of the lawyers he interviewed were mean, unlikeable or generally unpleasant. Rather, the sense that he got was that in each phone call or interview the lawyer was immediately trying to "cash in" on his business. Remember that he was finding a lawyer and not being cold-called. To dispel the notion that all entrepreneurs are cheap clients, this was the clincher for me: my ex-client said to me: "it wasn't about the money, and I wasn't asking for a discount- it was the service."

Lawyers tend to make bad salespeople; they are trained to defend and not sell. However, the point remains that making a sale about you by trying to "cash in" is a recipe for a non-sale. People instinctively know when you are putting your own needs ahead of theirs. As a few practical suggestions, try to put your potential clients at ease by avoiding these "all about you" sales techniques:

1. Raising price very early in the conversation when it has not been asked. This comes in two variations - pushing price onto a potential client early or negotiating a discount to a list price before the list price is ever raised. In my experience, it seems to imply you want a quick sale and you really don't care about your potential client;

2. Beginning an up-sell before you got the first sale. Typically, this involves a conversation whereby the salesperson says "and once you buy x software, we can upgrade you to y hardware, bring in our installation team to integrate your system, upgrade your service warranty and hire our partners ABC to do it." These types of conversations convey to your potential client your grandiose plans for you (even if it is well intended and you want to provide a full suite of services). Speaking about a future when there isn't a past or present relationship is something to be avoided. It is like speaking about your marriage plans on a first date- it usually never goes well.

3. Linking every conversational item back to a potential sale. If a potential client voices dissatisfaction with high taxes, do you indicate that buying your product/service is tax deductible? It is a bit of an extreme example but if every conversation has a road that leads back to the salesperson it usually ends in a dead end.

Remember we are all in the business of providing good service. I hope you can use some of these tips in your own sales process. Good luck.