Please remove my handcuffs they hurt (my sales)

Understanding your customers needs, challenges and objectives is the first step to selling a solution.  I am not sure how many times we, as an industry, forget that.  


I have been asked to give a talk several times that focuses on how to increase the solution sales traction in a company.  The presentation is universally well received.  The reason, I believe (based on the feedback I have been given), for the success of the message is this:
"The challenge has been identified over years of research, the message is clear, concise and in terms the target audience can understand."


This has lead me to the recognition that the most important thing we can do to sell solutions is understand our customers needs completely.  Not partially, not kind-of, not almost 100%, but completely.  I realize this is easier said than done but it is not too hard either.  It's not as though you need to understand every aspect of your customer as well as they do, but you do need to demonstrate your understanding of the aspects of what you impact well enough so your customer can trust you.

What we have found in our research is, most of the time the challenges to doing boil down to the same thing...

Sales people don't know what questions to ask to help determine if the customer has a legitimate, quantifiable and tangible need for the thing you are selling.  If you don't know the answer to this then you are truly just selling your customer some products.  Yes! As a matter of fact I am talking about a consultative sales being the only real path to positioning and ultimately selling a solution.  After years of scientific and unscientific analysis we have determined that unless the company's mindset changes, the situation will never change.


Sales people are sales people!


If you read that statement and have a negative reaction you are the one who's mindset is the problem.  Please reread that last sentence, it is meant to leave no uncertainty.


If you read that statement and thought, yes they are and we couldn't survive without them, you are part of the solution to your cultural challenges.


Sales people like to eat, they like to have a roof over their heads, they like to provide for their families.  I don't think anyone would dispute those facts.  Each of those things cost money.  Another indisputable fact.  So it stands to reason, and stick with me here, that sales reps like to earn money.  They accomplish this by selling things.  They sell the things you represent.  Most of them have been doing it for years and have helped make your company what it is today.


If you have, in the last couple of years, sabotaged what your sales reps do by telling them they need to sell a different way, congratulations, you are part of an ever growing club of companies who a pissing their employees off.  If you think for one minute that your sales team likes to miss their targets you are mistaken.  If you spent the last decade telling your sales team how to sell, but feeling like you were wasting your time, guess what?  You were wasting your time.  Sales behavior doesn't change just because you tell it to.  The trick is to learn how to free your sales reps to sell how they already do.


I can't tell you in the length of one blog post how to do that, but your sales reps will have some ideas.  the trick is to make it painless for them to talk about it.  If they aren't talking to you (the decision maker), I am sure they are talking to each other.  Chances are they are complaining about you.  If they are all doing it, you have a problem.  Even if only some of them are doing it, you have a problem.  You should be approachable, open, conversational and strategic.  Take a look in the mirror and ask yourself honestly if you are all of these things.  If not, figure out how to do it.  The best advice I can give is don't be an intensely scary person to talk to, be genuine, honest and don't argue your points.  Seek first to understand what you hear.


When you hear all the information, and discuss it openly, you can then begin to work through the challenges of changing the company culture.  Once this starts to happen, you will find a way to give your sales reps the support they need to evolve their sales approach.  Like all evolution, it is based on the traits that already exist and add things that add strength.  This is how you transition to consultative sales,  by helping the evolution along, not by forcing the revolution.


I would love to hear your questions and or comments.