The Self-Inflicted Sales Fallacy: "Relationships Just Happen"
| 08 | Aug |
| 2013 |
We're now putting the final touches on a
Ferrazzi Greenlight bookshelf offering, titled Everybody Sells, from which this is excerpted.
When I ask them why relationships are important to sales success, the answer is almost universal: “Because people buy from people they know and people they like.” Really, the reason goes beyond that pat answer, and people know that. Too frequently, however, they don’t act on this knowledge.
A salesman came up to me at a workshop not long ago and told me his story.
He had gone after a promotion he really wanted. He had been selling as well as anyone in the organization, he had an advanced degree and he’d been around a long time. Still, the job went to someone else. He lost the promotion, he said, simply because the boss liked the other candidate better--because they were friends outside the office.
My initial response was, “O.K., go on?” I thought there was more to the story. Of course the other candidate got the job. Relationships trump. Period.
I know that. You know that. The world knows that. I’d be amazed if the storyteller didn’t know that before the promotional opportunity opened up. He certainly knew that after his opportunity went to someone else.
You have to build relationships before you need them. Yet, like many traditional sellers, he sold on product attributes and was surprised when the deal went elsewhere. He had hoped he would be chosen because of his “better features.”
Relationship-building is about more than just the breaks an individual throws your way. If you’re working with a big client organization, it’s likely there won’t be a single unique buyer. There may be dozens of people on the client side that will influence the outcome in some way--dozens of people with information and insight. You may have that many people on the seller’s side as well. It’s very rare that any one person will be able to make a unilateral decision.
The way my dad learned the trade (and in turn taught me) was, “Sell, close, then go out and sell someone else.” Today, it’s a rare deal that ever closes. Sure you may “get them to sign on the line which is dotted.” But unlike the traditional selling process, the only thing that matters in this world is to keep them coming back for more. We have to over-deliver and keep over-delivering.
Even the best-paved roads develop cracks, and the bigger the deal the bigger the risk. Without solid relationships to help you survive the inevitable bumps in the road, today’s mega-deal—the one that’s going to feed you for the next decade — could easily become next year’s biggest nightmare and cost you your job.
That’s great, but what are you doing about it? What does that knowledge get you if you don’t act on it with conviction or discipline? What does that get you if it doesn’t become second nature every day on the job?
We can’t wish ourselves to sales success.
Relationships aren’t lightning strikes; they are nurtured by-products of effort.
So when it comes to relationships, are you ready to put your career in the hands of Lady Luck, letting serendipity guide you? Or are you ready to take control of a big part of your life by applying an Everybody Sells approach and learning the tools you need to rapidly accelerate the relationships that are most critical to your success?
One of the main reasons I love it so much is because of the feedback from people who are just learning our model and from those who’ve been using it for a while. It’s gratifying when someone tells us how this system we’ve worked so hard on has touched individual sales pros’ lives and transformed their effectiveness.
The biggest compliment I can get at one of my workshops from the people new to Everybody Sells is, “I already know this.” That’s great. Because every day, I meet the sales professionals who already know the power of relationships. Most every successful sales pro understands the importance, and the basics of how to get leverage from relationships.
The factor that limits them isn’t understanding, but action. They have the knowledge, but what they are missing is either conviction or discipline or both. Yes, they value the relationships, but their approach to applying that power is mostly to wait for lightning to strike. They don’t approach relationships with at least as much rigor they research competitors’ widget features.
It’s true that, on the surface, relationships are more personal and “softer” than widget features. But that doesn’t mean you can’t manage your efforts around them with a rigorous analysis and design and pursue that design with discipline.
In my next excerpt from my forthcoming Ferrazzi Greenlight Bookshelf book, I’m going to lay out for you the FTDAOR model that gives you the tools to be as rigorous and disciplined as you need to be truly effective. You’ll be able to use the tools whether you have a background in applying relationships to your sales work or not.
By Jeff Kaplan
No matter where I am in the world, I begin sales workshops by asking the question, “Are relationships important to sales success?” Folks invariably agree they are. The answer is true enough. But just as certain is the fact that the conversation reveals the only self-inflicted sales fallacy on our list: “Relationships Just Happen.”When I ask them why relationships are important to sales success, the answer is almost universal: “Because people buy from people they know and people they like.” Really, the reason goes beyond that pat answer, and people know that. Too frequently, however, they don’t act on this knowledge.
A salesman came up to me at a workshop not long ago and told me his story.
He had gone after a promotion he really wanted. He had been selling as well as anyone in the organization, he had an advanced degree and he’d been around a long time. Still, the job went to someone else. He lost the promotion, he said, simply because the boss liked the other candidate better--because they were friends outside the office.
My initial response was, “O.K., go on?” I thought there was more to the story. Of course the other candidate got the job. Relationships trump. Period.
I know that. You know that. The world knows that. I’d be amazed if the storyteller didn’t know that before the promotional opportunity opened up. He certainly knew that after his opportunity went to someone else.
You have to build relationships before you need them. Yet, like many traditional sellers, he sold on product attributes and was surprised when the deal went elsewhere. He had hoped he would be chosen because of his “better features.”
Relationship-building is about more than just the breaks an individual throws your way. If you’re working with a big client organization, it’s likely there won’t be a single unique buyer. There may be dozens of people on the client side that will influence the outcome in some way--dozens of people with information and insight. You may have that many people on the seller’s side as well. It’s very rare that any one person will be able to make a unilateral decision.
The way my dad learned the trade (and in turn taught me) was, “Sell, close, then go out and sell someone else.” Today, it’s a rare deal that ever closes. Sure you may “get them to sign on the line which is dotted.” But unlike the traditional selling process, the only thing that matters in this world is to keep them coming back for more. We have to over-deliver and keep over-delivering.
Even the best-paved roads develop cracks, and the bigger the deal the bigger the risk. Without solid relationships to help you survive the inevitable bumps in the road, today’s mega-deal—the one that’s going to feed you for the next decade — could easily become next year’s biggest nightmare and cost you your job.
- Relationships are about people buying from people.
- Relationships are about getting better information.
- Relationships are about knowing when to compete and when to hunt somewhere else.
- Relationships are about surviving the bumps in the road that are headed your way.
That’s great, but what are you doing about it? What does that knowledge get you if you don’t act on it with conviction or discipline? What does that get you if it doesn’t become second nature every day on the job?
We can’t wish ourselves to sales success.
Relationships aren’t lightning strikes; they are nurtured by-products of effort.
So when it comes to relationships, are you ready to put your career in the hands of Lady Luck, letting serendipity guide you? Or are you ready to take control of a big part of your life by applying an Everybody Sells approach and learning the tools you need to rapidly accelerate the relationships that are most critical to your success?
Here’s How
I’ve delivered thousands of workshops around the world and I love presenting to these crowds. They are mostly my peers – the sales pros and the sales managers and executives who came from a working sales background – and some other critical C-level players without our background who are attending to learn how to internally promote and shape their Everybody Sells initiative.One of the main reasons I love it so much is because of the feedback from people who are just learning our model and from those who’ve been using it for a while. It’s gratifying when someone tells us how this system we’ve worked so hard on has touched individual sales pros’ lives and transformed their effectiveness.
The biggest compliment I can get at one of my workshops from the people new to Everybody Sells is, “I already know this.” That’s great. Because every day, I meet the sales professionals who already know the power of relationships. Most every successful sales pro understands the importance, and the basics of how to get leverage from relationships.
The factor that limits them isn’t understanding, but action. They have the knowledge, but what they are missing is either conviction or discipline or both. Yes, they value the relationships, but their approach to applying that power is mostly to wait for lightning to strike. They don’t approach relationships with at least as much rigor they research competitors’ widget features.
It’s true that, on the surface, relationships are more personal and “softer” than widget features. But that doesn’t mean you can’t manage your efforts around them with a rigorous analysis and design and pursue that design with discipline.
In my next excerpt from my forthcoming Ferrazzi Greenlight Bookshelf book, I’m going to lay out for you the FTDAOR model that gives you the tools to be as rigorous and disciplined as you need to be truly effective. You’ll be able to use the tools whether you have a background in applying relationships to your sales work or not.
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