Watch This:
But don’t do that at home. Or in class. Or anywhere. Ever.
Pretty straightforward right? I gave you a clear path to follow – and hopefully you did (and didn’t just skip over the video I carefully curated from YouTube for your viewing pleasure to start skimming this post before writing a ten-word “I agree, good point” comment).
Anyways, a couple of times in class and while reading Pink, we’ve spent some time discussing how customers like having a clearly defined path to follow. Options, murky waters, and salesy lingo all just drive the customer further away from you faster than similar sides of a magnet repel.
As I was thinking about this, I came up with an analogy (bear with me here). Salespeople should be like weed whackers. Not sheepdogs. Here’s why:
A couple of summers ago, my dad ripped apart our backyard and put a lawn in. This required tons of weed whacking – we broke three whackers of the course of that summer. If you’ve ever watched someone whack weeds, you know that if the weeds are high and unruly, you can easily see the path they’ve plowed. The particular patch my dad was destroying had a lot of intensely prickly plants and thistles in it – but once it had been razed, my younger siblings would then traipse through the trails he had constructed for them, free of pokes and pain.
Similarly as a salesman, you want to remove all the thistles that may be causing your prospect pain with your weed whacker – fearlessly forging ahead, helping your customer realize for themselves that the best path is the one you’ve cleared.
However, you don’t want to be a sheepdog (even though we all fell in love with the ones in Babe). Why? Because sheepdogs get their customers to move by charging along behind them, nipping, cajoling, and forcing their sheep to figure out and choose the right path.
As Pink would say, this is a terrible way to treat your customer! By the old philosophy of sales, the sheepdog approach would probably fly. Overwhelming them with features, benefits, and fancy language is like the dog barking harshly and attempting to force the sheep down a certain path… it works, but it’s painful and leaves a horrible taste in the sheep’s (customer’s) mouth.
But as Babe showed us, the weed whacker approach is much more effective. Instead of flexing his herding muscle, he instead takes time to understand the sheep and actually speak to them thereby creating a two-way, mutually-beneficial conversation. Then, he shows them the way and they cooperate beautifully – and astonish everyone present. It’s great.
The moral of the story? Be a Babe.
BoweryJE22
I don’t agree, this is a very bad point to make!
Haha, I had to do that. I’m one of those – tell me what i’ll do and i’ll do the opposite, a real rebel without a cause. I really do like what you have said. I think your analogy holds quite true. I have an Australian cattle dog and she literally will herd anything, including me and this can be very annoying. I was wondering where you were going with the true salesperson should be like a weed whacker, my thinking… ” you mean we should chew up peoples arms, and be used for irresponsible play?” For real though: a very good analogy that helps bring the concept home!