Overemphasis of ‘the process’ of selling – the scripts, the timing, your outward appearance – is a common pitfall for many salespeople and causes many to lose sight of the ultimate objective: serving the customer with honesty and helping them with their ‘pain’. Too often, salespeople place the sale over the needs of the customer, desperately avoiding hard truths so as not to jeopardize the sale. They dance around hard question, soften answers, and steer the conversation around anything that they feel will play negatively into their objective. While this tactic can work, this method risks something far more valuable than a single sale: trust.
A few months ago, my father and I went shopping for a new trailer. The firs trailer we looked at was one that my father had already researched, so he knew most of it’s technical information like max load, etc. As a sort of ‘test’, my father began asking the salesperson questions.
“What is the load capacity?” my father asked, looking for a clear, distinct answer.
“Well, what are you trying to haul?” responded the salesman.
This is an example of a salesman dancing around a question. In reality, what my father was going to haul didn’t matter because the load capacity of a trailer is an objective metric. As it turns out, while that specific trailer was not rated for heavy loads, it was very expensive. Instead of giving a clear answer that he knew wouldn’t satisfy his customer, the salesman attempted to steer the conversation in a different direction to avoid disappointment, which only resulted in my father seeking another dealership.
While not always obvious, most customers can sense when they’re not getting a straight answer. This ‘game’ played by salespeople often erodes the their greatest asset: trust. Being honest does not mean being overly blunt or insensitive, it means being forthcoming about potential negative aspects of a product of service in order to satisfy their needs, not necessarily make a sale.
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