Salespeople could significantly increase their earnings if they stopped saying and believing “I know why.”
The reality is that their “knowledge” is a guess created from vague statements from prospects (“we really like your presentation”) and clients (“your service is top-notch”) that salespeople leave unexplored because they don’t want to be “pushy”, “rock the boat” or they “know why the client called.”
Keep in mind, the first rule of the prospect’s system is to withhold information (or lie, if you prefer). Prospects and clients are trained to keep the truth from salespeople because they’re mentally and emotionally protecting themselves.
The two primary reasons salespeople choose to “know” instead of exploring vague statements dropped by clients and prospects are: 1) they aren’t mentally and emotionally tough and 2) they aren’t comfortable being vulnerable.
Becoming mentally and emotionally tough doesn’t mean not having emotions or withholding emotions, but it does mean salespeople:
- Aren’t attached to the outcome: if their prospect says “no” or their client chooses not to expand their order, they don’t feel gutted.
- Don’t get emotionally involved in their meetings: as David Sandler said, “only the prospect may become emotionally involved in the sales interview.” Getting emotionally involved means a salesperson is focused on getting their needs met instead of helping their prospect resolve their pain.
- Separate their role from their identity: failing as a salesperson is just role failure. It doesn’t mean that salesperson is a failure as a person. Unfortunately, most of society equates role success or failure with an individual’s self-worth.
Being vulnerable doesn’t mean begging for business. Salespeople who are vulnerable:
- Don’t make assumptions: they make statements like, “it looks really good for you (to get our business)” and they find out what their prospect really means.
- Establish credibility: by helping their client design a solution to their problem instead of imposing a solution on them.
- Learn more and earn more: being vulnerable triggers a psychological reaction in a prospect to “rescue” the salesperson and share more information, which may lead to a larger problem for the salesperson to solve.
By thinking they know instead of making time to be vulnerable and actually learning the truth behind their client’s vague statements, salespeople leave a lot of money on the table and reduce the length of client relationships.
Get mentally and emotionally tough, get out of “knowledge” mode and put more money in your pocket.
