Only the Courageous Thrive in Sales
June 5th, 2009 by Adrienne OlsonBy Jeffrey Hansler, CSP
Jeffrey will deliver his powerful sales seminar to Chamber members on Thursday, June 11. Read more.
Sales has become a safe haven of order taking for many: Orders generated by marketing versus sales efforts. Their sales process is similar to sailing in the harbor: safe from the elements and deprived of the open sea of selling opportunities. For the salesperson, the sales process is not a straight course, but a course that captures wind and current where it can and tacks to take advantage of what it is given. To guide the vessel, to be captain of the voyage, requires awareness of the elements and knowing what will be required for rough water ahead. For the sales process, it means knowing key elements that will affect the sale.
Only the courageous thrive in the real world of sales and successfully create sales by guiding their vessel through rough waters. Unlike a captain of a vessel, who is supreme master of his vessel, with everyone on board and working to a fixed cause, a salesperson is guiding a vessel where not all are committed and quite possibly have plans of their own to sail in another direction. True salespeople; create sales opportunities by insisting on accurate information throughout the sales process to steer by, even if they rock the boat to gather that information. In gaining accurate information, they gain commitment to the voyage and flush out the non-committed. Courage is required to gain this information, because asking the questions to have accurate information, risks the death of the sale.
GK Chesterton describes courage.
‘Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. He must not merely cling to live, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.”
True salespeople gain accurate information by asking the hard questions. The hard questions are questions about the realities of the moment: realities that others often hide for one reason or another. The hard questions are the questions that all salespeople fear because they demand of others that they commit to the voyage or reveal themselves as mutineers. The hard questions that require courage are most often about how the decision will be made, the resources they are willing to invest, any risk that they perceive with a change, and their dedication to a solution
The hard questions must always be asked when a prospect has delivered a generalization, a distortion, or a deletion. Here are just a few that I’m sure you have heard before.
Oh, the committee will be looking at it.
I’m not sure we have the budget for that.
I believe that is in our price range.
Sure, send off some information, we’ll look it over.
Yes, I’m your contact.
We’ll get back to you on that.
There are three reasons for these statements:
- Fear of facing reality
- Fear of facing reality
- Fear of facing reality
Ignoring the motives behind their statements (… that’s another story), it is important to recognize these statements for what they are: a wall of water that will capsize your sales plans unless you have the courage to demand commitment to hold course and ask the hard questions.
Order takers will lose sight of their objective by accepting vague information and promises and return to the sanctuary of their office oblivious to the rough seas ahead. They will waste valuable resources steering a course with follow-up calls and chitchat guided by little more than hope. Eventually, these sales will become lost sales opportunities as the order takers sail in circles without true command of their vessel.
True salespeople will not accept these generalizations, because they know the opportunity for a sale requires accurate information. The true salesperson is determined to hold course and sail through rough waters to achieve their objective and they ask the hard questions to confirm their heading. (Re-word the questions below to fit your personality.)
Deletion: Oh, the committee will be looking at it.
Hard Questions: Great, and are you part of that committee?
Do you head up that committee?
If you want it, will the committee back you?
Distortion: I’m not sure we have the budget for that.
Hard Questions: Oh, what is your budget?
What will happen if you can’t afford this?
What is it you want as a result?
Generalization: I believe that is in our price range.
Hard Questions: What is in your price range?
$10,000 is in your price range?
Who set the budget?
Deletion: Sure, send off some information, we’ll look it over.
Hard Questions: Who will look over it?
Do you really need this right now?
Do you have time to go over it in a meeting?
Generalization: Yes, I’m your contact.
Hard Questions: So you make the final decision and authorize payment?
Contact for what?
Did you make the last decision about this?
Distortion: We’ll get back to you on that.
Hard Questions: Who will get back to me and when?
Why would you get back to me on this?
What do you need to check out?
The hard questions are easy if you are willing to forgo the illusion of an easy voyage going nowhere for the reality of rough seas leading to your objective. The reality is….
… a committee is made up of people and it either includes your contact or does not and how you proceed will be different depending on the situation.
… that if a budget has been set, they either know what the budget is or they do not know it.
… that if there is a price range it is a specific number and you are inside or outside that number and if you are outside some new decisions will need to be made to make a purchase.
… they will look at it, only if it is important to them for their future and they can tell you that right now
…they are the current contact and that does not mean they are the right contact for what needs to be accomplished
…they are trying rid themselves of someone that might ask a question about the reality of the moment and the fear will not go away in the future.
The true salesperson is willing to withstand a crashing wave of disapproval at the brashness of the question that demands accurate information. The true salesperson understands that you can’t cross oceans while you’re tied up at the dock and you can’t steer a course with bad information. The true salesperson wishes to drive to the sale with all possible speed so that they can begin another voyage.
A poem by George Chapman sums up the courageous life of a true salesperson willing to ask the hard questions.
Give me a spirit that on this life’s rough sea
Loves to have his sails fill’d with a lusty wind
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship runs on her side so low
That she drinks water, and her keel ploughs air
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