Exposing Sales Myths #4 – Customers like to talk about themselves

Grant Leboff: I love Sales Myth #4, because we’ve all been in sales meetings, and when I’ve mentoring salespeople, one of the biggest things they struggle with is – getting a customer to open up, getting a customer to talk about themselves. And then we are all told, in selling, customers love to talk about themselves, which is obviously the myth! It’s not true, customers don’t actually like to talk about themselves. One of the times when I see sales go the most wrong, for a rep, especially perhaps for a brand-new one, is that they can’t get the customer to talk, they can’t get the customer to open up and they’re not touching the right buttons. So can you explain a little bit more about how that works and what salespeople should be doing instead?

Mark Blackmore: I get incredibly frustrated when sales people walk into somebody’s office, desperate to build rapport. So what do they do, they look around the office and they see the golf trophy on the wall, so then they start asking questions about golf.

Now the reality is, that may be a nice icebreaker but the customer is seeing the salesperson because the salesperson, supposedly, has something to offer. They are not there to talk about the trip to St Andrews and at some point it needs to get on to business. Customers love talking about their business, they love talking about the challenges of the business, they love talking about their goals and objectives, but they don’t like talking about themselves. So, therefore, the best way of building rapport is ask questions about the organisation, not asking questions about the customer.

Grant Leboff: Is there a certain way that salespeople should be framing those questions? I have always found it interesting that some of the best conversations you’ll have, is when you get quite close to the bone with a customer or a prospect, but then there are ways of framing those to make sure that they are getting answered and you’re keeping that customer feeling comfortable. So have you got any tips or hints about how you would look at doing that?

Mark Blackmore: It’s really about pain and gain. So actually, the point that you are making there is that if we are starting to identify an opportunity, an objective, it’s asking what are the implications if that doesn’t happen? That’s when you then start to get the customer opening up, because if they have certain objectives, personally, that they need to achieve, if you don’t achieve that, if you don’t help them to achieve that, then they are in trouble. That’s when they are very open because, if they feel that you have genuinely something that can help them, then they’ll give you all the information that you want – and sometimes it’s almost difficult to then keep them quiet – but it’s about you helping their desires, it’s about you helping their problems. Then you get the rapport that you are trying to get when you were talking about the golf.

Grant Leboff: Does that change at all when you get into selling to decision maker units’ or multiple decision makers and how that manifests itself through a meeting or through a series of meetings? Are there any nuances or things that change at that point?

Mark Blackmore: If you are now trying to influence across a broad perspective of the organisation then we clearly need to understand their goals and objectives even more. If you don’t understand what the total company is trying to achieve then actually, the fact that you’re helping Jim down there in marketing, isn’t helping the finance guy and it isn’t helping the sales director. So having a true understanding of the business’s goals and objectives is vital at that point.

Grant Leboff: What’s the best way to do that? Is that simply just asking the question, do you think that you always get a straight answer? Is it wangling your way in, to make sure you speak to all the vested interests? What would be your advice to a salesperson who finds himself having to find their way through this myriad of different people?

Mark Blackmore: Well Grant, how many people do you think read company reports when they go into a sales meeting? Probably few – so, therefore, the only understanding they have of that customer is that person who they are talking to and that’s a huge mistake. So if this guy’s got credibility, then perfect. If they don’t, then the salesperson is probably in trouble. So it’s about doing the research, understanding the company objectives, where are they, who are their competitors, what are the key initiatives that they are trying to achieve that year? Bring that to the party and then they’ve got a chance.

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