In our sales training practice, we get asked in to companies to solve sales problems. That’s just what we do.

Every Sales Problem is a Behavioral Problem

But every sales problem (can’t get to the right person; can’t sell a premium price; can’t overcome the objections; can’t close; can’t prospect) all have to do with “behavioral issues.” And for behavior to change, you must understand how adults learn (to change their behavior).

Here are our findings:

1. Relevancy. If you’re teaching someone, it had better be relevant to them. Ever sat in an all day training/presentation and been able to predict at 8:30am that it would be a total waste? Of course. It’s a waste because the teacher/facilitator never helped it be relevant. And it’s so easy for sales curriculum to be relevant. Just ask the learner, “What do you want to work on? What’s important to you?”    Why is that question seldom asked?
2. Problem-Focused. Every new piece of content you give to a sales person (or to yourself) had better solve a problem. And it’s more useful if there is a connection between the problem to be solved and the pain of the learner. How to do that? (OK, Sales Leaders here it goes- ASK! Yep, it’s that simple. Ask your team what they’re struggling with–and PRESTO, they’ll tell you.) Make sure that every core piece of curriculum you teach solves a problem.
3. Technical. What I mean by this is that it has to be very tactical, technical and detailed. If you were teaching me how to post a blog, you wouldn’t just say, “Go get a blog and write.” There’s a lot more to it than that. Yet, when we’re teaching someone, we skip the details. Don’t skip the details. The learning is ALL IN THE DETAILS.  When you’re coaching someone how to overcome prospect objections, don’t give them several one liners to combat it. Go through, in detail, how you would deliver the reaction–try out new words based on their personality.
4. Attack The Real Resistance. This is a well-kept secret. It’s where most real income growth comes. It’s in the attention that should be focused on the thinking behind the actions–not just the actions.  Sales is a thinking game. We call it the Inner Game–the emotional and mental constructs we’ve set up that limit our success. Unless you change an adults thinking behind the behavior, you will get only moderate change. (One example of this is our belief that the prospect should sell you. That’s a VERY different way of thinking. Yet, when you get that right, the words follow very easily.)
5. Reinforcement. This is the #1 law of learning–the mother of all laws. Yes, Tiger Woods probably gets damn sick of practicing 6′ putts. But he knows that he’s made millions on 6′ putts. You probably don’t hear Roger Federer say to his coach “No, don’t need to practice that drop shot anymore. I got that one down.” You don’t hear that because great performers never stop practicing. What about you? How many hours have you practiced your Upfront Agreement in the last month? How many hours have you spent role-playing the handling of objections? How many hours have you spent practicing the asking questions in a way that allows the prospect to actually tell you the truth? (Here’s an idea no one will like: Spend less time making cold calls to people who don’t want to talk to you–and spend more time in the practice facility working on your game).

So now you have some idea of how adults (you) learn. If you’re a sales leader, keep this article next to you as you do your next sales meeting. If you’re spending all of your time on ‘Funnel Activity’ you’re wasting time. Work on these thing above–and you’ll be amazed at the invigoration of your team.

Adults do change behavior.  We do have it in us. But stale PowerPoints don’t do it.

Seth Godin’s blog this weekend about Vague Claims was about the realtor who advertises “Top 10 Realtors In Nation.” He maintains, if you can’t be specific about something don’t claim it.

We say, “If you have to lie to get noticed, then don’t expect the rest of the sales relationship to be based on honesty.”

This is especially true of you sales people who come in to the prospect’s office making un-demonstratable claims. “We can save you money!” “We’ll enhance your business.” “We’ll get you on the first page of Google.”

Lies, all.

Then, we sales people flip out when we make yet another unsubstantiated claim–and the prospect doesn’t believe us.

Don’t you understand that you started all this lying by putting forth something without proof?

Solution: Make No Claims

Then, its easy. Besides, why are you so intent on making claims the prospect may care nothing about?

• The Realtor above says he’s Top 10 In Nation, but maybe I don’t want that. Maybe I want someone down the list that I feel can take care of me. Someone who has more time (and isn’t as arrogant).
• You say you want to cut costs for me. Maybe that’s not my #1 concern. (Be careful about that assumption.) Maybe it’s more important for me to know what those costs even are–before I can cut.
• You say you can “grow my business.” Maybe I don’t want that. Besides what “grow the business” means to you is totally different than what it means to me. (And you haven’t even taken the time to ask me about it)

Find out what the prospect wants–where their mind is–what’s on it–and why they invited you in. (Oh, you begged to get in? Trouble. We’ll have to deal with that one in the next post.)

We recently opened  the Leadership Institute of Indianapolis. It’s an academy to help tomorrow’s leaders become better. And the blog Leadership Insights will help you sample some of our philosophies.

And yes, we’ll be combining some of our marketing and sales tips with leadership development.

Coming soon, we’ll have a video tutorial for emerging leaders. It’ll deal with how to lead and manage more effective teams.

Our goal at Caskey is to continue to give you highly-applicable, new strategies to help you grow your business.

That’s the Starbucks win.

The loss though is a peek inside a company — and how even the greatest ones can make mistakes. (I recognize this is just one transaction that went bad.)

My friend Ron Rosenberg is sponsoring a “Health Care Customer Service” symposium for a large group of healthcare executives–100-200 high level people. He recognizes the customer care situation facing health providers. (Have you been to a doctor lately?)

He brought in a top speaker who wrote a book about the Starbucks Experience. Ron, thought, “Hey, I’ll buy 200 $5 certificate cards from Starbucks and give them out.”

Then, he thought, “Why don’t I call SB’s and tell them what I’m doing and see if they want to have a few of their people there, maybe to hand out the certificates?”

I’m sure Ron was thinking, “Let’s give the participants an experience of great customer service.” Two of the attendees were even considering putting a Starbucks in their medical facility.  

But guess what Starbucks said?

No. We will not agree to participate in the Executive Forum. No reason. No explanation. Just–No.

Hmmmmm. As he was telling me the story and getting to the punch line, I thought for sure he was going to say the SB Regional Manager not only agreed to do this, but would also throw something else in the mix–maybe a larger certificate, or maybe a scone, or maybe a free song on iTunes, or something.

Or I thought he was going to tell me the SB Reg’l Mgr was going to come in personally and make an appearance–maybe even to say a few words.

But no. Even Starbucks makes mistakes from time to time. Even when their stock is in the tank. Even when they announce they’re going to slow down new store openings to focus on revenue building at existing stores. 

We’re all excused for a slip-up in customer service. But in the new economy, when it’s hard to get in front of decision makers, and when every move you make–good or bad–is one step from the internet (read Seth Godin’s new book, Meatball Sundae for more examples), you had better think about the implication of a minor slip up. I don’t know if Ron will tell the attendees what happened. But he told others–who told others–who told others.

Actually he should tell the attendees about his experience so they can all learn from the incident. If you’re a healthcare provider (or any business for that matter), do you realize that each customer you have is a potential blogger/podcaster/publisher/referrer? And the experience you give your customer can be easily transmitted to others (maybe hundreds–maybe thousands).  The internet can be your friend to spread the good word.

It can also be disastrous. I’m sure someone at Starbucks has a Google Alert for anything written about them. And I’ll probably hear from them. And I’ll blog about that conversation too, if it happens.

I’ll write more on great customer experiences in future posts. Have you had any great ones to tell me about? I’ll spread the word….

I got to thinking about what he said and was curious about why that had such an effect on people, I determined that certainty kills curiosity.

Whenever I hear someone say, “This is how I do it and it’s always worked,” they almost certainly have killed themselves off from being curious about other ways to do it better. You’ve heard the saying, “only fools are positive.” To me, that is exactly what happens when you are so sure of yourself that you are not open to other ways to improve your results.

As you think about your sales approach to prospects and clients, be careful that you don’t “have all of the answers and don’t need more input,” because you may be cutting yourself off from one easy tactic that can monumentally affect your business.