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Customer Identification
As sales people, our fundamental job is to reach out to potential customers and build a relationship that includes our product or services. Everything beyond that is tasty, but not a necessary part of our meal.
Relationships exist in the bonding between people. We co-join around some commonality. In our families, the common ground is our love. In our communities, it’s our social contract. In our sales relationships, that commonality is our product or service. The more we reach out to build that sales relationship, the more successful we become. Kenneth Burke, one of the Twentieth Century’s great thinkers, said, “You persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his.” [A Rhetoric of Motives, p. 55]
With that said, we probably need to think a little differently about marketing methods that we use to set the table. Marketing gives us the conversational opening to start the relationship. Discounts give us a reason to talk. New products give us a reason to talk. Product bundles give us a reason to talk. And on and on and on. Our job is to answer the question, “what in the offer is allowing us to identify with the customer?” Do anything you have to do to find customers. BUT the only way you will keep them is by building a relationship based on trust and service to keep that customer.
Try to imagine a different economic exchange next time you discount your products or services to find a customer. Most people look at an exchange and figure that they are giving up a percentage of their profit to find and keep a buyer. Instead, think about giving up some profits to gain information about a customer. Your goal is to discover what customers might have an interest in your products and WHAT that interest is.
Bless Lester Wunderman
For direct sellers to better utilize virtual markets, they have to be willing to let their potential customers take teeny, tiny baby steps. There is a tendency to take a new customer’s name and then try to sell them the moon at your first opportunity. Of course, the customer gets turned off, and you are left to blame the marketplace (“this doesn’t work”) or the product (“nobody likes it”). What you need to do is give them an opportunity to satisfy their curiosity without much risk—to get them to interact with you.
Try This
Let’s say you have collected lots of lead slips from a trade show booth that you had an opportunity to work. Send your cold-lead-names a brief email that says:
Dear ______ Enthusiast:
Thank you for stopping by my booth last weekend. I’ll be following up with telephone calls this week. If you call me before I call you and mention my top selling product, I’ll send you a free sample. My number is 972-596-0265. Call soon. If you visit my website, www.bestproductaround.com, the first product you see mentioned is the top selling one. Sincerely, Neil Phillips
Do you think it would be worth a sample to have someone go to your website? Imagine how much more they will explore about you, your products, and the company you represent.
It Works
Lester Wunderman is the often credited with making the direct marketing approach work. I was reminded of that this past week when I was reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Wunderman coined the term direct marketing and created, among other things, the Columbia Records little gold box. The little box was in the print advertisements and the TV and radio commercials told you how to use the box to get a free record. For Columbia, the response rate for their advertisements increased by 80 percent. What have you got to lose? Try to be a “Wunderman” for a couple of months and see if it helps.
No Ideal Salesman
This is a bit of a rant. I read lots of things written about sales people from lots of different perspectives. Here is mine. THERE IS NO IDEAL TYPE OF SALES PERSON.
I really am not sure about the origin of the search for an ideal type of sales person. While the thought makes for interesting speculation, you will better off ridding your mind of the thought. Advocates for “typing” want to find someone who is forthright, charismatic, results-oriented, and quick to action.
Frankly, they are wrong. A sale is a CUSTOMER BASED activity, not a seller based activity. An ideal person is one who adapts their style to fit the customer. I’ll offer some extreme examples, but they’ll help show the point.
EXAMPLE ONE: TNT started a new series called Heartland. One of the characters on that show, Kate Armstrong (played by Kari Matchett) has what I would consider the worst sales job in the world. She has to convince next-of-kin people to donate the bodies of their recent brain-dead loved ones. Imagine the disaster if her sales approach was quick, forthright, and results-oriented.
EXAMPLE TWO: USA TV has a show, Monk, with a unique leading character. Adrian Monk, artfully played by Tony Shalhoub, is full if idiosyncratic foibles. He is not very trusting and has to have complete understanding of a situation to proceed. Can you imagine him confronted by an “ideal type” of sales person?
EXAMPLE THREE: J. Jonah Jameson, Peter Parker’s editor at the Daily Bugle, is a dictator. He wants HIS results, and anyone who can deliver the dirt on Spiderman can have his attention. Can you imagine him listening to someone like himself?
Do you get my point? The ideal person can adapt their style to meet the needs of the customer. It isn’t about what you want; it’s about what the customer wants.
One common profiling system used is DiSC, which has people self sort into one (or a combination) of four categories. For people seeking an ideal, the D is often held up as the archetype salesman. Get that foolish notion out of your head. It doesn’t matter if you are a D, I, S, or C. What matters is your ability to focus on the customer.
I’ve finally figured out how to add pictures to this blog. This is a chart produced by Inscape, the largest provider of DiSC materials.
