Common Sense Selling, by Stan Rosenzweig

I have a lot of friends in the Westchester and Fairfield business community. We get together often to talk about business issues and the most common complaint I hear is, "Most sales people I hire can’t sell worth _____ (insert derogatory noun of choice)."

This usually is followed by the somewhat rhetorical question: "How does anyone find people who actually bring in more money than they cost? It's a common lament around here because, as you know, most people looking for work can't come anywhere near selling as well as you owners do. Three big reasons are:

1. They don’t know as much about your value proposition, as you know.
2. They don’t have as much passion for what you do.
3. They don’t understand what you, as a business owner, feel from the buying side of the decision. In other words, they can’t understand what you're thinking when it's your money at stake.

I just returned from Las Vegas, where I gave a seminar on this subject to 100 owners of technology companies. We Westchester and Fairfield businesses are not alone in our quest for people who at least don’t add to the red ink. These attendees from all over the U.S. and Canada had the same gripe. They hire people with good resumes and great intentions, but the ramp-up to profitability is painful… if the ramp-up ever comes. Yet, there are sales successes. So what’s the secret?

Having owned and sold five companies and been involved in the training of thousands of sales people from all over North America, I’ve learned not to expect sales people to overcome the first two reasons cited above. However, the third item is one that you can remedy quickly, resulting in extraordinary productivity, quickly and at very little expense.

To get them profitable, teach them this "buying key" that comes from understanding the three questions every prospect always silently asks himself, that you must answer in order to get the sale:

1. Do you solve a problem that I, the prospect, agree needs to be solved? (If not, you're history.)
2. How much will it cost and is it worth it? (Let's face it, if it doesn't improve my business, I'd much rather use the money to buy a new boat.)
3. How do I know I can trust you to get it right? (You look honest, but maybe you're not that bright.)

As you can see, these questions are the same ones you, as owners, ask every time you are asked to buy. Doesn’t it make sense that the people you are trying to get to open their checkbooks and write you a check think the same way?

The answer to question one tells if this is a real prospect, or if we are just wasting time. Time, after all, is the only asset a sales person owns.

Secondly, solving the problem must be cost-effective. A reality check does wonders both for buyer and seller.

Third, and this is the deal clincher, can your sales person convey all aspects of trust to the buyer? This includes not only the ability to perform, but to insure that this recommendation won't produce a lot of hidden costs that come back to bite us all later. Let's face it. When you buy, these are the same concerns, you have.

Now, here is where we get it wrong with regard to hiring people. We teach our sales people all the technical aspects of what we do, but don’t address this basic empathy that we all know is key to our own buying patterns.

When you address this simple change of perspective, you find that it's just what new sales people need in order to be more valuable to your prospects. Then they'll make more sales.