After a brief hiatus, SALES with ASLAN is back! This week, Tom Stanfill and Marc Lamson sit down to discuss Tom's brand new book, UnReceptive. They discuss what drove Tom to write the book, why it's important, and the aspect of selling that sellers hate: unreceptive customers. Tune in to hear Tom's insights on how to overcome 2 important barriers to having real influence with a customer. Cheers!
Check out this excerpt:
There’s an aspect of selling that those of us in sales universally dislike: customers that avoid us, dismiss us, or outright reject us. Why is this experience so common for sellers?
Selling has an interesting stigma attached to it. The population at large tends to think of sales professionals as “used car salesmen” with “commission breath.”
“It’s tough as a seller right now. The catch 22 is that we don’t know how to help customers unless they talk to us, but prospects don’t want to talk to us unless we tell them how we can help them.” - Marc Lamson
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
We’ve figured out a way to help eliminate resistance and make sales more enjoyable, meaningful, and successful. There’s a whole other dimension that sellers need to learn to navigate.
Because the reality is that sellers help people. They help their customers sort through the information and options at hand to choose the right solution for themselves and/or their business. Our role is to serve. So how can we eliminate that resistance and increase receptivity so that we can fulfill that role?
The issue that many salespeople run into in today’s climate is that when customers are unreceptive, the traditional approach to selling fails. What do we mean by traditional? It’s like taking someone to court to make your argument and win your case. Sellers ask for a customer’s time in order to list off their solution’s features & benefits, hammer out their value proposition, provide case studies, etc - and the belief is that logic will win out. But here’s the problem: nobody’s in the courtroom.
Here’s our simple but counterintuitive approach: stop selling and start with cultivating receptivity. This is the key to gaining influence with your customers.
Think about a farmer trying to grow a healthy crop. There are two elements she needs to consider - the seed and the soil. If the soil is not fertile, the quality of the seed doesn’t matter - it will not grow. The same idea applies in sales. If the customer is not receptive, your value proposition doesn't matter.
Note: You may be thinking, “Well that’s not always true.” And you’d be right. If your customer is open (receptive), the traditional approach to selling works. But if they’re closed (unreceptive), it doesn’t. And the problem is that most customers nowadays are unreceptive to being sold. That’s when we need to shift our focus from selling to increasing receptivity.
So let’s unpack what this might look like in your practice by addressing two of the barriers to influence:
Barrier 1 - Changing Their Perception of You
Barrier 2 - Opening a Closed Door
For more, check out our blog post: https://www.aslantraining.com/the-2-barriers-to-true-influence-in-sales/
