Have you ever seen the movie French Kiss, with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline? One of my wife’s and my favorite lines from that script is this one: “Happy – smile. Sad – frown. Use the corresponding face for the corresponding emotion.” While it’s an entertaining scene in the movie, it might actually be a clarion descriptor of a serious problem for many sales organizations.
It’s widely accepted[i] that a client decides to buy based upon their beliefs, and then supports that decision with fact. Call it emotion v. logic, right-brain v. left-brain, art v. science, or whatever you like. The basic premise here is this: If all a seller does is discuss features and functions, or engages in solution-based conversations right out of the gate, then the probability of closing that deal drops, perhaps precipitously. If engaging with clients at an emotional level is so critical to selling, then those who enable sellers (leaders, L&D, marketing, etc.) have to ask themselves a simple question: What proportion of my sales enablement efforts is geared toward ensuring our sellers are interfacing with our customers so as to connect with clients at that emotional level, as compared to educating the sellers on portfolio knowledge, internal processes, CRM usage, selling systems, and so on? What is being done within your organization to actively measure and improve your sellers’ EQ?
In my discussions with sellers and leaders over the years, a few things have become apparent. First, “soft skill” development (e.g. EQ training, executive presence, presentation skills, etc.) is often either left up to the leaders (who tend to impart soft skills by example, expecting the seller to simply emulate them), is delegated to HR (which is a travesty since in my experience few in HR understand the nuances of a sales conversation), or is flat out ignored. This is bewildering, considering the importance of soft skills in the realm of interpersonal interactions – which is the primary role of a seller.
Second, there’s a preponderance of focus on the “what” is sold, v. the “how” and/or “why”. Granted, understanding the portfolio is table-stakes, and depending upon your product or service and the structure of your front line sales team, the degree of necessary portfolio knowledge can vary; e.g. an uber-seller may require an intimate understanding of the entire portfolio top to bottom or, if you use a team approach, the account owner focuses on the client with somewhat limited technical knowledge while a sales engineer focuses on the technical minutiae. And, when attention finally is given by enablement teams to the “how”, it is frequently in the form of learning a new sales process or methodology, reinforcing the seller into a nearly programmatic series of conversations void of EQ. This propensity toward the codification of the sales process, using programs such as SPIN, Sandler, Challenger, and a multitude of other methodologies, while effective to varying degrees, necessarily requires increased focus on EQ training in order to provide the balance necessary for effective seller/buyer engagement. However, many organizations see a seller’s time as zero-sum; if they increase the focus on a sales methodology, then they necessarily have to decrease the amount of time spent on soft skills training, which is exactly opposite what organizations should be doing.
I believe the selling skills required to engage a client and “climb the buying ladder” with them are actually fairly straightforward and basic. I also happen to believe sales isn’t particularly difficult, provided the focus remains on the client rather than the product or sales process, and also provided the seller introduces their products/solutions only when appropriate in the buying process, rather than relying upon the product or service to sell itself. In fact, if an emotional connection can be made between seller and buyer, that relationship can transcend a great number of problems and forgive many manners of sins, such as delivery issues, price discrepancies, technical difficulties, and so on. The relationship a seller has with the client is also the key differentiator if the situation is highly competitive and the technical differences between bidders is nuanced or negligible to the buyer.
A word here about the phrase "emotional connection" and the seller/client relationship. It isn’t necessary for a seller to become their client’s best friend, nor to even attempt to do so, especially given the professional context in which the seller and client are interacting. If a friendship develops, it will be external to the task at hand, which is to address a client’s business issues; in fact (and this may be my military background coming through here), developing a close friendship with a client may even complicate a situation and force decisions which are less than optimal. An emotional connection involves empathy, rather than sympathy. Most good sellers I’ve known have been able to sympathize, understanding their clients’ positions in a logical, objective, sometimes clinical fashion. The few truly outstanding sellers I’ve known have attempted to empathize with their clients. Empathy manifests itself differently than sympathy during a conversation – not so much in the words which are used, but in body language, which can account for the majority of the interpersonal exchange. When an emotional connection is made, the listener is open, leaning into the conversation, absorbing what is being said, making direct and communicative eye contact. Transference of emotion during an exchange is what is meant by “emotional connection”, and the results can be catalytic to a deal.
Another caveat: When I say a “buying ladder” it implies linearity in the sales process. In practice, I’ve that found few sales follow an exact, step-by-step progression; the path from prospecting to establishing a long-lasting relationship with a client rarely looks like a ladder, and instead might resemble the path chosen by a rock climber, looking for the best footholds, sometimes moving sideways, possibly needing to move down, but always directionally upward to the target. The injustice done to sellers by teaching them linear sales processes I’ll address in another posting. For now, understand that there are many models of buying ladders, and no one model should be considered to be an accurate description of every sale. That said, I happen to like the ladder presented by Michael Griffin, not because I feel the steps in the buyer’s decision ladder are accurate, but because he makes an attempt to identify the emotions the buyer is feeling as they move between stages:
Here is an adaptation of Michael Griffin's Buying Decision Ladder, with associative emotions:
What sellers require, in addition to some level of portfolio knowledge, are tools and skills to recognize and navigate the emotions which take place during a sale. Sellers, if they are to be consistently and purposefully successful, need to develop their EQ competency to break through the natural seller/buyer barriers and begin relating to the buyer at a personal, emotional level. There are some who believe this is an innate competency, incapable of being taught. I disagree. Using these skills may be outside the average seller’s (or even good seller’s) comfort zone, but to become a great seller, to transcend the pack and create a differentiation where none appears obvious, these skills have to be learned and practiced until they become a competency.
As you can imagine, this is less about sales in the vein of “here’s a methodology, follow this and you’ll be successful”, and more about psychology and communications skills. In fact, it’s a relatively short list of skills which need to be learned, plus a couple of basic tools you’ll use to reinforce the learning:
Some people are very good at sales, but most, truthfully, struggle with it. There’s a multitude of reasons why sellers struggle, and the usual reason is we get in our own way, tripping over ourselves trying to explain things, trying to remember what to say next in the sales process du jour, climbing that ladder. We focus on what we can explain away with fact, figures, features, and functions, and tend to ignore the reality that sales, ultimately, is two people first trying to figure out how much they trust each other, then trying to figure out if they’ve got a solution to each other’s problems (yes, the seller most definitely also has a problem they too are trying to solve… or hadn’t you ever thought of it that way before?). Happy – smile. Sad – frown. Distracted – cell phone in hand. Defensive – arms crossed… Learning to read peoples’ emotional cues, and reflecting those cues back to them in the form of stories in which the hero either overcomes those negative emotions or embraces the positive ones, could very well be the secret to winning more deals and becoming a trusted advisor.
Footnotes:
[i] A Google search on the string ‘selling emotionally’ returned over 25M hits, with many reputable sources. The reader can run the same search string and determine for themselves the apparent ubiquity and validity of buying being an emotional v. logical event.
Griffin, M. (2014, September 11). The Decision Ladder. Retrieved from Elavate Sales: http://elavatesales.com/blog/the-decision-ladder/
Bob has been in sales and training for more than 20 years. He approaches corporate training through the lens of an MBA, understanding the dynamics of complex services, manufacturing, and sales environments, while simplifying it all so stakeholders across an organization communicate effectively. Bob leverages his military and corporate experience to build and lead teams which focus on cross-functional knowledge management, performance improvement, and paradigm alignment. Importantly, Bob understands how the field of training must adapt to the changes in marketplace, and how training must transform from a traditional information delivery function to a trusted business partner, which directly and measurably impacts behaviors to move the business needles.
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