You Know More Than You Think

Several years ago I agreed to coach my son’s 7^th grade basketball team. I had not played basketball since 8^th grade and can’t say that I was a huge fan of the sport. But I agreed to coach nonetheless. As the day before the first practice approached, I grew more and more apprehensive about coaching. Finally the day for the first practice arrived and I was speaking with a colleague at work about my nervousness. He told me, “Sam, no matter what, you know more about basketball than a 7^th grader.” That completely calmed my nerves. In the same way I think many sellers get rattled when speaking with a large prospect or demanding customer. You need to remind yourself that you are an expert at what your company does, and no matter what, you know more about your product than they do.

This issue came to a head for me just recently. A customer and I had several conversations over a several week period. But something wasn’t working – we weren’t on the same page. He was growing ever more frustrated with me. Somehow the follow up to his questions wasn’t satisfying to him. While I was getting him what he asked for, it wasn’t fulfilling his needs. Not seeing revenue associated with all of this work was beginning to frustrate me as well. Finally he said exasperated, “We don’t know what questions to ask you!” Then that basketball coaching memory flooded back – I know way more than this customer about our products and should be giving direction instead of taking direction. At that point I changed my selling style and we started making some real progress.

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Have you ever had a prospect “go dark”? If you’ve been in sales for any length of time it has surely happened. The LinkedIn groups that I participate in are full of posts asking for help with this very topic. Well I have the answer and it works nearly every time. It’s called the “Are You?” email and it is described in detail in my book, Click “Send” and Sell. Three Unconventional Emails with Extraordinary Sales Results. At only $3.99 the book is a bargain and the results you see will be amazing. Don’t take my word for it, read the reviews yourself! Some of them can be found on the right hand side of my blog page.

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What happened in my scenario happens frequently in sales – we give our prospect too much credit for knowing things that they don’t. In my case the prospect was constantly asking for information that I was happy to provide, but it wasn’t helping him. Once I realized that he didn’t really know why he was asking for the information, we had a level-set conversation and I was able to guide him down a different path. It was a very difficult but necessary conversation.

Sellers typically assume that prospects know how to solve their problems, ask all the right questions, and determine next steps. But your prospects have full time jobs with varying responsibilities. Thinking about you and how you can solve their problems is a tiny fraction of what they spend time on throughout the day. You probably know way more than they do about how your solution can help them and they are relying on you more than you know.

Try this. On your next sales call, instead of asking the classic “What are the next steps in your process?” say “Here’s what I would like to suggest as a next step.” Take ownership of the sales process instead of asking your prospect to. Show some leadership and value-add. They may not know the next step or questions that they should be asking. Remember that first house you bought? You were totally lost without the realtor guiding you through the process. What if the realtor had said, “So now that we have a signed offer, what next?” Would you have known to order an inspection, survey, pick a title company, etc.? Not likely.

You are probably giving your prospect too much credit for what they know. If you suspect that is the case take a different approach. You’ll like the results.