Why Salespeople Lie

The world of business is currently mired in platform development, entrepreneurial risk taking, and cutting edge business planning. The most profitable companies are the best places to work because the culture is relaxed but the players are putting in long hours. Technology has streamlined the way we work. The politics and formalities are breaking down in favor of collaborative business improvement planning. It is as it should be.

Ties are not comfortable, meetings that tip toe around issues are not productive, and people who pretend to be experts are anything but. We are becoming more honest with one another because we have learned from the mistake of trusting the wrong people. Business partnerships are built on personal relationships. Mistakes are forgotten when the intent is right and partnerships are destroyed when the expert is revealed as a court jester.

In simplest terms, a lot of the things that used to be characterized as "professional" were a smoke screen. So how do we see through the smoke...?

Stop Lying
I have been in sales consulting and sales training for 15 years and I can tell you this....sales people are liars. It's the thing that makes people hate salespeople. So the process for success is incredibly simple:
Tell the truth!

In the movie, "In Good Company", the great Carter Duryea convinces a bunch of industry veterans that his education and youthful motivation have applicable relevance in the marketplace. It works for a while. But when he meets the boss' daughter in the elevator he admits to her that he has no idea what he is doing. It is a refreshingly human moment. While it is probably not best to completely reveal your cards, I can tell you that in time the pretenders are always revealed for their true selves. Why fake it?

As a salesperson, your target buyer will often ask you leading questions in an effort to measure your BS meter. Many salespeople see this as an opportunity to showcase their expertise (and it often might be). But if you talk yourself in circles, you destroy your credibility. Let me advise you are 3 simple things:
Allow silence to linger.....don't believe you have to keep talking
Address questions directly
Don't allow the past to sidetrack your strategy

We Weren't There
Have you ever asked a salesperson a yes/no question and gotten a 20 minute answer? Did the answer even address your question? In sales anticipating pitfalls is critical. If one knows their product cannot perform a certain function, they might seek to disguise that. In fact, they may overexpose their fact masking because they are so afraid that their past product failures will resurface. Often times, the aforementioned paranoia exposes an inefficiency that does not even apply to the situation. Then, you lose because you lied.

Quick tip: don't buy from someone who does not directly address your questions, they are hiding something.

So Then...
Be honest but don't reveal your hand. Sound contradictory? Not really.

The process is simple: Someone needs something and you have something to give.

Why complicate the issue?:
You do not want to leave any stones unturned...so ask good questions!
You do not want to miss a buying signal...so do your research!
You do not want to validate your buyers stereotypes....so be honest!

Don't Forget to Remember!

Dave

Still Thankful?

Well Friends - Thanksgiving has come and gone. Football played, turkey devoured, adult beverages consumed. A week's preparation for a week's clean up. This year I had the pleasure of uniting three generations of Kovacovich's in the beautiful ocean side location of Carmel by the Sea (in California). Between trips to the beach with 11 of the worlds greatest people, I fired up the Twitter back-channel. It was run amok with glad tidings from one cyber friend to another. There were blog posts, hashtags and charitable splash pages....all messages of thanks from one human to another for a year well served.

...on Friday, it was gone!

#thankful was replaced by #blackfriday. Stories of families breaking bread were replaced with pepper spray melees at the local Walmart. Thanks had given way to disagreements again. The spirit of the holiday faded quickly. Today, people are boarding their cars with furrowed brows hesitant to open their over-crowded inboxes. Have we reduced ourselves to one day a year to say Thank You?

We will spend the next few months rushing through stores buying things for people. A way to express our gratitude. "I spent money on you, so I must care"! Office desks will be crowded with wine we won't drink and chocolates that will weigh us down. We spend, consume, and pretend to care; in hopes that it might serve our personal gain.

My friend Pete shared a story of his need for brain surgery this last weekend. My friend Ralph lost his battle to cancer just a week before Thanksgiving. These are real stories that are happening to us every day. I am not willing to believe that we have lost our ability to make human connections at work. We cannot
ignore vulnerability in our co-workers for fear it will create more work.

Are you creating memorable experiences? Are you fostering meaningful relationships? Do you possess the ability to make others feel special?

Yes! You Do!

People need help....and YOU are going to help them. Here's how:
Lead by example
Be a good listener
Put dedicated thought into your Thank You's

If not you, then who?
Sometimes our advice to others is met with reluctance. We feel that we will offer words of encouragement and they will be rejected. What's the use?

People are more willing to accept advising from those who practice what they preach.
Take care of yourself....exercise, eat right and disengage in harmful habits.
Work hard....show up early, work late and be responsive.
Have a plan....short and long term planning allows for clarity of purpose and a fall back plan.

Two ears and one mouth
No one has an answer for everything. If they do, they are simply playing semantics. No one enjoys talking to someone who has a retort to every word spoken. We need to learn to listen more than we talk. We need to be able to take in information and give relevant feedback. Sometimes people just need to get things off their chest. Sometimes people need to be told in direct terms that their actions are inelegant.

Put away the cookie cutters
Now that Thanksgiving is over, you can put away the cookie cutters. It is the time of year when holiday cards come pouring in: Do you have better appreciation for a hand written note or a mass produced stock message? Cookie cutter thank you's serve the direct opposite purpose of their intended gratitude.

The greatest moments you will experience at work will have one thing in common: a lot of thought was put in to creating a meaningful experience. The best gifts you have received have been profoundly meaningful to you because someone took time to know you, researched, and made extra effort to give you something that was irreplaceable. This needs to be part of our every day!

We need to put thought into the experiences we create for our co-workers. Our co-workers need to become our friends.

It Can Happen!

If you put thought and extra effort into everything you do for others you will be looked upon favorably. When people respect you they will always listen to your advice. We will all grow together!

Don't Forget to Remember!

Dave

Get Grounded

I had a great little getaway to the coast with the family this weekend. I told a friend about it this morning and he said - "wow, I want to see pictures". I didn't have any. I almost felt defensive that my description of the Central California Coast did not quench his intrigue. His defacto response may have been a way to avoid conversation...if I had emailed him a photo album he could breeze through it and interpret for himself if he would ever visit. This is a sign of the times....send me something, I'll look it over, and we can discuss later if I see anything worth talking about.

He to whom I told of my vacation aside, the traveler himself can get caught up in a need for documentation. People tweet their activities from poolside in Hawaii, they compile unlimited photos to prove they had fun on the family vacation, they load the facebook page with visual proof that they are enjoying life....and you are not! Yes, it may be said that our need for documentation is not in memorial of a joyous time but justification of the money spent to put smiles on our faces.

Think about the greatest times in your life. Do you have pictures of them or are the memories permanently ingrained in your mind?

The immediacy of technology has destroyed our ability to enjoy ourselves! We take time away from our loved ones to put our head in our phone. We miss irreplaceable moments with our children because we are busy texting about them.

I would challenge that we need to get grounded!

We need to put away the handheld and participate in our life's memories. We need to get away from the lap top and truly enjoy a little time off. We need to stop taking vacations for the sake of visual content.

Three Bigger Questions:
Are you engaging in meaningful conversation?
Do you know how to craft a story?
Have you taken time to say I Love You?

It's Great to Hear Your Voice
How often do messages get misinterpreted via email or in social media forums. Words can be taken out of context, we say things hiding behind a computer that we wouldn't say to someone's face, our emotions get the best of us. Unfortunately, the Internet is written in ink. We can never take back what is documented.

We have gotten to the point that it is more convenient to email a customer and wait until tomorrow to address the real issue...that doesn't make it go away. When a co-worker has had a long day, it is very difficult to feel their troubles through a computer screen.

Good old conversation is the only way to ensure we are making communicative progress. It's never easy to confront the elephant in the room but elephant's eat the notes that you try to leave at their feet!

Story Telling
Peter Guber has received great accolades for his book Tell To Win. The general premise is that people have a better grasp for products and services when told to them in dramatic terms. I will always remember your presentation if you deliver it in the context of a personal experience that makes sense to me.

Drama aside, a lot of us simply have lost our ability to talk to people. After a day at the computer, we spew words at people without considering the setting in which our story takes place. Every day, I hear people talking to one another in insulting terms (even though they have good intentions).

Stop being defensive, stop pretending you know everything, and step out of your digital sanctuary.

I & Love & You
The Avett Brothers once proclaimed in song that the three words that are hardest to say are: I & Love & You! Ain't that the truth! Nowadays if we really need to tell someone we love them we can send them an email or write a cheesy facebook tribute. This way we get the emotion out of the way without truly having to engage in it.

As hard as it may be you need to hug your Mom, grab her by the cheeks, and tell her you love her! It might get weird for a minute but these are the things that genuinely matter!

The question that looms like a cheap chandelier:
Has Convenience Replaced All That Is Sacred?

Can we not visit the beach without taking a picture of the sunset. Can we not watch our children play without sharing the image with the world. Have we forgotten how to Love because it always requires editing?

Social Media rules! God bless Steve Jobs for giving us the I-phone! Thank goodness computers have helped us achieve more in less time!

More important than all of it, are the people we walk past every day....neglecting to say hi because we are texting them from across the room.

Don't Forget to Remember!

Dave

Collaborate

Welcome to the first installment of the Employee Purpose Perspective. This is a 7 part blog series that will challenge you to breath the winds of change into your organization.

Salesforce.com has become one of the most profitable companies in the world over the last five years. The interesting thing about Salesforce.com is that they have developed camaraderie in the cloud. First, they developed a world class CRM tool, then they invited potential competitors to create apps to compliment their service suite.

Imagine that...an industry leader focused on collaboration not competition...?

In the advent of social media we have seen a shift from company logos to personal brands. We have found ways to share ideas instead of locking them away. An individual (who may not have a leadership position within the walls of their company) has an opportunity to reach far more people through their blog, twitter or facebook page.

We drive ourselves nuts worrying about the competition. What if that didn't matter? What if we could work freely without paranoia of giving away secrets? What if we could look our competitors in the eye and say, "this is what we do, try to stop us". What if we could coexist in an industry space without having blood money circumstance? My contention is that the transparency of open business practices forces us to have better customer service, better relationships and tailored solutions. We are not fighting for the same customers, we are developing lifelong partnerships. There is no blood in the water because we are all sailing in our own direction.

Companies like LinkedIn and Zappos have created a space on Twitter to address customer issues. Completely out in the open. It would seem that you would have to have great confidence in your customer service to open a complaint file for millions to view. Either that, or you are willing to share the hiccups and your ability to cure them. Honesty driving business efficiency....another shocking development!

There are 3 Principles to Collaboration:
1. Shared Vision
2. Profitability
3. Rewarded Resource Allocation

Vision
Everyone wants to work with the Fortune 500. If you run a 5 employee start up, you may not have the bandwidth to service GE. 'Tis better to understand your limitations than to drain the bucket pretending it can contain a big fish.

Profits
Would you rather spend all day trying to please one customer or service 100 customers with organic efficiency?

Our most difficult customers are difficult because we bent over backward pretending we could please them...and have been performing back flips ever since.

Rewards
Thank You is a great thing to hear. Great expectations and their according challenges are any customer's right to business elevation. But, this has to be an empowered process. If you are always asking for more by the entitlement of a paid invoice, you are missing the point of partnership. Say Thank You after every challenge is over come....and learn to forgive if the effort is there and human error wins over once in a while.

The first step in making the career you want out of the job you have is finding the right customers. If you force partnerships you will....drain your resources, piss off your co-workers, spend your days checking your phone and spend your nights awake.

Define your target market and utilize your time accordingly!

Don't Forget to Remember!

Dave