You are a buyer – why do most salespeople make you uncomfortable?
Is it their approach… dress… attitude? Is it money… trust… the way they share what they know… and the list can go on forever. Let’s take a closer look at why buyers are uncomfortable with the oldest profession in history.
Yes, sales is the oldest profession in history, and sadly, the least respected of all.
To prove this point, let’s play a game – password. Again, you are a buyer. What words or thoughts come to mind when I say salesperson?
I always hope that some of those words and thoughts will be positive and professional. But most are not. Try playing the game with others and see what they say.
Yes, “sales” is considered the lowest form of profession there is by the general public, and all of them are buyers, including you.
Traditionally, salespeople have been taught a lot of sales techniques and tactics. Most of these worked for a while. But over the years salespeople have “trained” buyers on these techniques and tactics.
As a result, salespeople have taught buyers everything they know and buyers have developed a process to counteract their actions.
The worst part is salespeople don’t even realize that the buyers have taken control and it’s the buyers who end up qualifying the salespeople and their products and services.
Think about it. How do buyers respond to most of your methods and techniques? Who is rejecting whom? Who should be rejecting whom?
Over time, buyers have been turned off by high-pressure tactics, sleazy sales gimmicks and manipulative closing techniques. And, as information became easier to gather and to evaluate via the Internet, buyers gained more control.
Buyers today can purchase whatever they want, whenever they want, without a salesperson confronting them.
Now, what is it about salespeople that makes you, as a buyer, uncomfortable?
#1 Complaint – Salespeople waste my time, primarily because it is all about them, their product or service, their brand or organization.
#2 Complaint – Salespeople talk too much and don’t listen enough. They believe everyone is qualified to buy their product without asking questions or listening.
#3 Complaint – Salespeople are full of surprises. They are not always honest and take advantage of everything from time to up-sells, all for their reasons, not mine.
Gone are the traditional days of the slick, hit-and-run “feature and benefit” dumps.
Listen up, salespeople! To succeed in sales today, you need to stop selling. Do the opposite of what you may have been trained to do—that is if you want to be different than most salespeople out there. Be professional. Follow a non-traditional buyer-focused sales system. The difference is that you will have your buyers buy from you, rather than being sold something by you.
Otherwise, salespeople are working on a hit-and-miss basis, wasting time and not getting the results they could be getting. They become a slave to the buyer’s system.
If the profession is to survive the Internet, salespeople have to eliminate the surprises and add more value to buyers. It is no longer just about B2B or B2C—it has to be H2H – Human to Human.