October 19, 2024 | Read online
Helping elevate the people and profession of Sales by sharing authentic conversations, practical tips, expert advice, relevant tech and real-world lessons from my experience selling every day. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday.
One of my favorite things about Sales is that it’s one of the only professions you can practice almost anywhere you go.
You can try to negotiate for almost anything. For example, if you pay full price at Macy’s here in the US, you should be ashamed of yourself. They have a “One-Day Sale” 365 days a year. If you don’t have a coupon all you have to do is ask the person at the register and they’ll give you one.
If you have kids, you literally negotiate every day of your life.
Another great thing about Sales is that you can experience it from the other end as a buyer all the time too.
And boy did my wife and I have an experience from the other side this past week that I wanted to share with you.
Since it’s a little bit of a longer story, and I don’t have any awesome new tips or resources for you, I thought I would use the whole newsletter to tell the story and highlight the learning lessons along the way.
By the way, if you’re looking for tactical tips, you can always check out my YouTube channel. I've also put together a Meeting Mastery Guide with my partners at Otter.ai that you can download here (more info below).
SALES FROM THE STREETS:
Read the Room
Quick back story - My wife and I are looking to update our kitchen.
Since we will probably only live in this house for another 4-5 years I didn’t want to spend $100k on a full new kitchen so instead of replacing all the cabinets, we’re going to repaint them, get new doors and fixtures, and maybe a new granite countertop.
We got a few quotes to understand the budget range and wanted to get one more just to be sure.
The guy was scheduled to come by on Tuesday night at 7 pm which was a little late but it was the only time he could come that week.
One more piece of context is that my wife got really sick this past weekend with a head cold, body aches, etc., and didn’t get out of bed all day on Monday and most of Tuesday.
Needless to say, it was late and she wasn't feeling great so we didn't want this to take very long.
I wrote a Linkedin post recently about the difference between sophisticated buyers and unsophisticated buyers and how when you come across a sophisticated buyer, you need to reduce the friction of the sale as much as possible.
In this case, We were a sophisticated buyer since we had already met with multiple vendors and knew what we wanted.
So it’s 7 pm on Tuesday night and the guy’s running late which is already a bad start. I have a pet peeve about people who are late for meetings, especially when they don’t text or call to let you know.
When he shows up, he comes in and immediately starts talking about how he usually doesn’t do home visits this late but was making an exception for us. Um…ok.
Then, my wife chimes in and tells him it’s late for us too, she’s sick and we know what we want so let’s make this quick.
Instead of getting right to the point, he starts doing his “rapport building” by talking about himself and how he retired at 48 but got bored so he wanted something to do so he got this job because he loves working with people blah blah blah…
Somehow he started talking about his heritage and then my wife said she was Italian which he then dove into how his wife was half Italian but he didn’t know where they were from.
After fumbling around like he had lost his train of thought he then awkwardly ended that part of the conversation with a “well…let’s just leave it at that.”
From there, he dove into the history of the company he was working for, how they were founded, the quality of their product, how they never get beat on price, etc. None of which we gave a shit about.
I see this all the time with junior (and sometimes Senior) reps when doing a demo. They start with their background, history, and awards and then dive into their demo without really engaging with the client to understand their needs.
I’m no psychologist but let’s put a few pieces together on why this is such a terrible approach.
- What’s ANYONE’S most valuable asset? TIME
- How much time do we have to get someone’s attention in today’s world? SECONDS
- What’s the #1 thing in the world that EVERYONE loves talking about? THEMSELVES
So, you’re telling me that in the first 10 minutes of your presentation (in this case it was more like 20), you’re going to spend that time (my most valuable asset), talking all about you?
I know I said I wouldn’t give any tactical tips in this newsletter but here’s one for those of you who do demos.
This is the approach I would take instead:
- Start by talking about what you know about the customer so far
- Then, go around the room and ask each person what the one thing they want to get out of the presentation is
- When you start the presentation, ask them how much of your company’s background they want to know before you dive into the presentation. If they don’t seem all that interested, skip through that part completely
- As you go through the demo or presentation, if what you are showing them isn't something that any of them said was a priority and it’s something that all your other competitors have, skip through it.
- When you get to a part of your demo that highlights one of the attendee's priorities, pause your presentation, call on that person specifically, and instead of saying something useless like “Does that make sense?” ask “How does that compare to what you’re doing now?” or “How do you see that fitting into your existing workflow?” How they answer either of those questions will tell you everything you need to know on whether or not it made sense.
Back to the story.
As this guy rambled on about himself, how he’s such a relationship guy, and how he likes helping people, we kept trying to interrupt without being overly rude to get to the options he suggested for the cabinets.
When we finally got there he was somewhat helpful in making suggestions but with every suggestion came another stupid story.
Finally, we agreed on the type of cabinet doors and fixtures, so he had to measure everything, which he could have done while he was talking to us and looking through our kitchen.
My wife had enough so she went upstairs to bed while I stayed downstairs waiting for him to measure everything out.
After he was done, he said that he would have to go back to the office to put together a quote and then come back to our house to deliver it instead of sending it over email.
This is a technique/approach that I actually appreciate when it comes to home contractors. I have a bunch of friends who are contractors and I tell them to never deliver a quote over email and never deliver it unless you have both partners (in this case my wife and I) in front of you.
The reason for this is because the excuse of “I need to talk about it with my wife” is the easiest objection for anyone to use to get out of making the decision.
As he was wrapping up he brought up the fact (again) that he’s never lost on price and it’s because he’s not in it for the money and doesn’t mind not making commissions as long as we get the kitchen of our dreams that we’re happy with. Give me a break.
Here comes the cherry on top of this whole layered shit cake he was baking for me.
To highlight how he never loses on price, he starts telling the story of another couple he was working with whose kitchen was larger than ours, and when he gave them the price he knew they were going to want to negotiate with him because they…wait for it…”Didn’t exactly look like you and me if you know what I mean.”
I said I didn’t but I did.
He explained how they were from another country and before he went any further I told him to get the f**k out of my house.
As I escorted him out of my house, I couldn't resist telling him that he was one of the worst sales reps I had encountered in a long time. He didn’t know how to read a room or adjust his approach to the situation.
Unfortunately, outside of the racist comment at the end, this is what happens more often than not when sales reps present to clients.
There are many lessons we can learn from this experience, but the main one is that you need to adjust your style to the people you are selling to. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to selling.
Don’t be like this guy, learn how to read the room and realize that no one cares about us, they only care about themselves, so make the conversation about them, not you.
Oh, and don’t be a douchebag racist.
MEETING MASTERY GUIDE
So you run meetings the right way
As you may have heard, I started partnering with Otter.ai, the note-taking company. I've been using it for a few months now and the whole thing has been a game changer. We even thought to put some of my meeting best practices together in this free guide.
Here's what you'll learn:
- The #1 secret to successful sales meetings: Discover the simple yet powerful prep step that most reps overlook. (Hint: It involves planning, not winging it!)
- Craft a Shared Agenda that keeps everyone on track: Stop wasting time with unfocused conversations. This guide reveals a foolproof method to get everyone aligned on the meeting's goals.
- Focus on listening, not frantically taking notes: Learn how Otter.ai, your AI meeting assistant, can capture every detail so you can focus on building rapport and closing the deal.
- Send a killer follow-up email that reinforces your value: Leave a lasting impression and demonstrate your understanding of the client's needs with a customizable summary email template.
ADDITIONAL WAYS YOU CAN LEVEL UP YOUR SALES GAME
- The JB Sales Membership is where you’ll get access to my live training, workshops, AMAs and OnDemand catalog so you can level up your sales skills every day! 3000+ Sales pros have already joined. Are you next?
- The industry-leading Make it Happen Monday Podcast where you’ll get insights and inspiration from some of the most interesting and influential people in the world of Sales and business. (this is where you’ll hear the Guy Kawasaki episode on May XYZ)
- The JB Sales YouTube channel with practical tips that you can apply immediately to drive results along with interviews and content that is guaranteed to get you to think differently.
- PS. Want to start your own newsletter? I can't recommend Kit enough. This newsletter has changed the game for my business.
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