Bad Sales
Elliot Epstein2017-03-23T23:41:06+11:00There’s a whole genre of Bad movies such as Bad Santa, Bad Grandpa, Bad Teacher, Bad Neighbours and the most recent, Bad Moms ( genuinely funny!).
The premises vary ranging from absurd stupidity to hilariously heartwarming, but one of the keys to their box office success (collectively over $1 Billion) is that people relate to the stereotype being broken.
We don’t see ourselves as robotic stereotypes and whilst people often crave acceptance from their peers or managers, it is not sought at the expense of losing intrinsic individuality.
One of the greatest advantages of selling or consulting is to engage authentically and frequently with other Homo sapiens.
However the trend towards homogenised sales approaches, skills, account plans, recruitment and training is getting worse, not better.
Recently I have conducted five different executive level selling programs and one of my longstanding themes of ‘It’s OK to be yourself, rather than being a life support system for a sales methodology’ has never resonated so strongly.
After all, you got the job for a reason.
The look of relief, liberation and transformation is palpable as professional sales people discover that the person they are with friends and family is the same person they can be with clients.
The only change is a business context.
The meth (odology) pushers are still selling dangerous pills that destroy creativity, ingenuity, individuality and ultimately confidence.
Sales managers reach for more pills to give sales people in an effort to produce results. Sales Steroids are legal though and many are subjected to three and four day regimes to be indoctrinated in the latest Sales meth lab.
Unsurprisingly, sales people come out of these labs slightly giddy, heads spinning, temporarily euphoric, only to crash in front of real clients when the alignment of the methodology to their individuality is about as neat as Trump’s hair in a tornado.
We need a WADA – an anti-doping program to stop turning wonderfully imperfect, highly competent, individual, introvert, extrovert, ambivert sales people into dopes.
We need to coach, mindful of the individual preferences of real people who deal with real clients.
Standardisation is lazy. It’s like emailing sales teams with this week’s key sales messages instead of discussing it with them.
It’s not 1977 where we only had two flavours of yoghurt. One size fits all sales processes leave a chunk of people wearing ill-fitting suits in front of clients.
Those clients can tell and that’s the bottom line. They’re subjected to sales meth addicts daily and they can see exactly what you’re doing Spinning, Challenging or Snapping to try and lead them to buy your widgets.
They’re over it.
They want more.
They want the real you.
As Nietzsche said “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist”
If you’d like to know more about we can help you unlearn your way to authentic sales results, email me directly elliote@salientcommunication.com.au
Elliot Epstein is a leading Pitch Consultant, Keynote Speaker, Corporate trainer who gets sales results rapidly. He has coached and trained high profile corporates globally in presenting, selling, negotiating and pitching. He has spoken at over 1500 conferences and workshops for leading companies such as HP, SEEK, Avaya, Hitachi, Lend Lease and EMC.
He is internationally renowned for ensuring sessions are engaging, interactive and relevant to winning business in competitive markets.
Elliot is based in Melbourne where he lives with his wife and two individual children.
www.salientcommunication.com.au
www.salesversusprocurement.com
Published in Executive Level Selling
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