Stop Letting Your People Pitch
I learned something very interesting when I first started consulting in the ‘developing’ world, where social enterprises are addressing the problems caused by poverty. They are selling life-saving, life-changing products to poor people, instead of simply giving handouts.
I went into one of the rural areas of Cambodia, right next to Vietnam, to observe a team of salespeople. None of the team members had ever been in sales before.
Again and again, I saw them approach customers, start talking at them, and just not shut up. They explained, they demonstrated, they stretched the truth, they even threatened and intimidated!
They thought ‘selling’ meant ‘pitching’ and ‘convincing.’ There was zero conversation.
‘You could sell ice cubes to Eskimos’
‘She’s got the gift of gab’
‘Joe’s a natural-born salesman’
In every one of the 54 countries we’ve worked on six continents, in our own culture and every other culture we have served, there is a common belief about sales: selling means pitching.
Salespeople think that selling is pitching.
They craft their ‘elevator speech’ to get in the door so they can pitch some more.
They learn a spiel for every product and service they sell. They memorize sales talks, learn to prepare PowerPoint decks, gather case studies, and have stories at hand to illustrate every product and to answer every objection.
They go to a first meeting with a customer armed to the teeth with a value proposition, complete with compelling images of what they can do, the brands they’ve done it for, and how valuable it can be for the customer who is now listening at length to them.
They only listen long enough to hear the word, the phrase, the need for something they have in their portfolio, and they’re like a shark smelling blood in the water. They open their mouths, start talking, and just don’t stop.
Companies think that selling is pitching.
Marketing departments shower salespeople with images, slogans, videos, case studies, and scripts for ‘customer conversations’.
Product departments develop technical specs, long lists of features and benefits, confident that reciting this information will make the difference.
Finance departments not only provide the sales targets, they require forecasts of prospective deals and ROI calculations they want the sales staff to pitch to customers.
And customers think that selling is pitching.
They are convinced they know what they need, so their opening questions are: ‘How can you help me? How are you different than other suppliers?’
Larger companies have adopted RFP and RFQ processes which require solutions and quotes up front so they can be shortlisted.
They delegate purchasing to the procurement department and shield their executives and heads of departments from the silver-tongued pitching machines that suppliers send to knock on their doors.
Anyone who finds a salesperson standing on their doorstep simply ask, ‘What are you selling?’ and wait quietly while salespeople drone on.
Nobody seems to notice that this belief – selling is pitching – is a self-defeating approach for both seller and customer that perpetuates mistrust, ignorance, and blame for poor buying decisions that don’t deliver what was needed.
Pitching is all about a solution, not about the problem for which a solution is needed.
Customers buy because there's a problem to solve, and, unless that problem is fully understood before the conversation turns to potential solutions, customers are going to buy ignorantly and sellers are going to sell blindly.
How do you avoid this? First, stop pitching! Just give it a rest. There's a time and a place for it, but it's not at the beginning of the buying process. There are several steps customers need to take before they are ready to hear your pitch:
They need to be intrigued and impressed that you have researched the problems they face and that you’re taking the time to give them insight, ask them substantive questions, and require them to fully understand the issues they must address.
They need to go through the exercise of estimating how much it will cost them to leave these problems unsolved. Only then will they have enough financial motivation to find a solution for which they are willing to pay what it takes to solve the problem they now grapple with.
They need to get the right people in the room to explore, develop, and commit to the solution that you are going to develop with them.
Get this done, every bit of it, and then make your pitch. Do this well, and several interesting things happen:
You will differentiate yourself from all those suppliers who are still pitching.
Your customer will trust you because you’re not bombarding them with a pitch but guiding them to an understanding of the problems they are really trying to solve.
The time invested in the front end of the conversation will pay off: objections are fewer, buy-in is significant, and you have a customer not just for now, but for the future.
We call this approach DQ Sales®. You’ve heard of IQ (intellectual intelligence) and EQ (emotional intelligence). DQ refers to ‘decision intelligence,’ the customer's decision intelligence.
When your sales team dedicate themselves to it and learn how to lead their customers to develop it, their sales performance will change – significantly and for good.
If you want to introduce this approach to your team, try the following. This is one of those exercises that is highly effective to do together.
Draw four columns on a whiteboard or flip chart. Title the columns: ‘Product (or Service),’ ‘Feature,’ ‘Benefit,’ and ‘Problem.’
Use all that marketing and product information to complete the first three columns for the major offerings in your portfolio.
Then list specifically the customer problem(s) that each feature and benefit addresses.
Now ask each salesperson to identify the problems each of their customers currently have at some depth. If they can’t do this, require them to learn and help them find the resources to do so.
Then ensure that they lead their customers to a full understanding of their genuine needs before any pitching takes place.
You may want to read more about DQ Sales® in one of our books, Decision Intelligence Selling or Sell Well, Do Good. But don’t hesitate to take your team through this exercise. You’ll figure out what to do next.