Are you coaching your sales people to sell in a contrarian approach?
In my book, The Contrarian Salesperson, the whole premise is that in today's commoditized environment that’s super competitive, there are so many traditional sales people that act pretty much the same. And then, as a result, they invite a certain prospect behavior that's not good for the sales process.
Things like doing a lot of unpaid consulting.
This usually looks like you giving quotes, proposals, and ideas to prospects. They then disappear and end up stealing the information you provided them.
Talking on a call more than listening.
70% of any sales call should be listening, and 30% should be talking. Not asking the right questions, spewing out ‘features and benefits’, and not addressing the prospects pains can all be part of this.
Getting into a comfort zone, and not continuing to grow.
There is a lifeboat exercise I recently wrote about. People in comfort zones will not help you grow, and your biggest fear should be that they will become the weak link and hold you back.
There's so many principles in the book. And they’re not just specific to salespeople in Chicago or Northbrook but apply worldwide. In future blogs I'll go through more of these but for today, just big picture, my first principle is zig when others zag.
So, if you have sales people and you have competition that are all pretty much using the same approach, be contrarian.
How you can be different?
How can you standout?
One of the terms we use is ‘pattern interrupt’.
The pattern is normal salespersons in front of a prospect. They then, in turn, act a certain way. It happens automatically when they see a salesperson. They turn on a certain demeanor, a certain approach that, like I said, is not good for the communication. It's not good for the sales process.
So, I'm attaching a link for a free chapter from the book. If you want to reread it, or you want to check it out, just download it and get the thinking going.
But for now, as a manager…
I want you to be asking yourself the question, are you training your people and coaching them to have a contrarian mindset, contrarian strategies and a contrarian approach so they standout in today's highly competitive market?
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