“If we layer our sales processes and begin to measure against those and then look at seller activities to support that, but teach reps to recognize that buyer behavior, it’ll change the whole focus of the way that we approach clients.” – Todd Caponi in today’s Tip 951
Are we buyer-centric in that name only?
Join the conversation below and check out the links!
The Sales History Podcast
The Transparency Sale Book
The Transparent Sales Leader Book
Todd Caponi on LinkedIn
The Transparency Sale Website
Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]
Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Todd Caponi is back. You probably know Todd as the author of The Transparency Sale, but he also has a new book coming out in February titled the Transparent Sales Leader AND he’s got a relatively new podcast called The Sales History Podcast. Here’s Todd:
Todd Caponi: Hey everybody! Are we buyer-centric in that name only? Meaning there’s a lot of talk about, we need to be buyer-centric. We need to put the customer first. But systemically, when we look across our own organizations, I don’t think we are. And here’s what I mean.
Let’s look back a hundred plus years ago at sales process. Think about, if you heard of AIDA, AIDA it might conjure thoughts of Alec Baldwin giving his famous speech in Glengarry Glen Ross. “Attention, do I have your attention? Interest. Are you interested? Decision. Have you made a decision at action?” That actually is from E. St. Elmo Lewis from 1898. He had devised what was literally the first sales process, 123 years ago. And it was based on recognizing buyer behavior. Sales process based on whether or not the customer is paying attention, whether or not the customer is interested. Whether or not the customer desires your solution, and whether or not they’re ready to take action. Right? Customer-centric and for 40 years, it was the basis of every single sales process. Sales individuals looked at buyer behavior as the beacon for whether or not a deal was moving forward or not.
Now, let’s fast forward to today. I want you to think about your own CRM systems. What are the stage names that are in your CRM system for the different forecast stages? I’m guessing it’s probably things like qualified and discovery and demo and proposal and closed, all seller-centric things. When we even take a step back and look at qualification criteria. What acronyms are we using for those? Is it like pant or medic or champ or meat or that there’s a ton of them that are all based on selfish sales things.
So while we go out to the world and we say that we need to be buyer-centric, everything we as sales leaders and sales organizations measure. And what gets measured is what gets focused on is seller-centric, isn’t it? I think that it’s time for us to really take a look at what we measure and the processes that we look at, because this is one of those things that well, Alec Baldwin’s kind of dirty old school wouldn’t go down that path, but I think old old school may have gotten some things right.
Can we look at our sales processes and start to recognize buyer behavior? Buyers go through three stages when they’re making a purchase. The first thing that they do is discover and decide whether or not they have the trigger to change their status quo, to do something tomorrow. That’s different than what they’re doing today. Why change is that first set of stages. Then once they decide for change. The decision comes around. What is the vessel for that change? What is the solution? What is the product and that’s around you? And then once they’ve decided for you, it goes into a process around why now? The signature process, the whole element of is this something we’re going to do now? Or is this something that’s going to wait? Why change? Why you? Why now?
If we layer our sales processes and begin to measure against those and then look at seller activities to support that, but teach reps to recognize that buyer behavior, it’ll change the whole focus of the way that we approach clients. We’ll spend more time on the deals we should win, and we will truly do our job, which is to aid buyers through their buying journey.
What do you think? Just a revelation that I came from being a sales history nerd, but I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Reach out. Comment below, and would love to hear what you think. Alright, thanks!
Scott Ingram: For links to buy or pre-order Todd’s books and to The Sales History Podcast, just click over to DailySales.Tips/951.
Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!