Merry, Merry, Quite Contrary

“You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.”

– Benjamin Graham, Economist

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

– Wayne Gretzky, Hockey Player

Ever hear about  the young salesman in New York’s garment district? Everyone knew that sales took a dive in December when buyers took the holidays off. There were simply no sales to be had.

But our young hero didn’t know that, and no one bothered to tell him. Wasn’t it obvious? Apparently not. He proceeded to have a record-setting first month on the job.

Even though common misconceptions often have a basis in fact, they can hang on long after fact turns to fiction, even being passed down from generation to generation. Who knows why? But they do, and, as garment district sales people learned, myths can be costly.

Put another way: Sometimes it pays to be contrary. Here are a few examples.

Common Misconception: Don’t spend marketing dollars in July and August.  That’s vacation time, and, like the garment district buyers, no one is around to see your marketing materials, let alone act on them. That thinking stems from traditional direct-mail marketing and doesn’t necessarily apply today. But the direct-mail people weren’t trusting their gut on this one. They had years of hard numbers on response rates from testing mailing lists. If they didn’t mail to their markets in July and August, it was because they knew  response would be poor.

_____________________________________________________________________________

You’re invited to join us on Tuesday, August 11,
from 4 to 6 p.m., at Chicago’s Union Station,
as we pack life-saving meals for children
and network in a new way.
Contact us at 847-446-0008 Ext. 1 or
pkrone@productivestrategies.com.
See “ Hunger, Hope, and You ” on our blog.

Cocktail Reception Follows at a Nearby Restaurant
Hosted by Productive Strategies

_____________________________________________________________________________

Today, however, nearly all of us are plugged in digitally nearly all of the time. For that reason alone, depending on your audiences and channels, your messaging will indeed be read. Plus, vacations these days are taken during “off times,” not only in the summer.

But there’s another reason contacting prospects and customers during “the holidays” or in the summer can work. Less response doesn’t necessarily mean less value.  Even if many people are on vacation, many others are not.  When conducting calling campaigns for clients at those times, for example, we have found it’s sometimes easier to reach decision-makers than at other times. In fact, because business can be slow then, they may actually have more time to talk. This contrarian activity has produced a lot of new business.

Common Misconception: Telling is selling.  We find that technical experts-engineers, attorneys, architects, software developers, and others-too often attempt to establish their expertise by telling prospects all about the product, process, or service they are selling, especially the “how” of why it’s so good. Unfortunately, decision-makers often find this approach boring. They don’t necessarily want to know the “how” but the “what”-that is, the results of using it. What are the implications for their business? Communication that educates is important, but communication that persuades is what sells. Plus, telling someone you’re an expert by displaying your knowledge doesn’t necessarily convince a prospect that you are in fact an expert who can be trusted.

Persuasion is a much more efficient way to establish expertise and trust-as well as to get the sale. How is persuading different from educating? Effective persuasion reveals expertise through the questions you ask during discovery. We have found that technical people can become highly productive business developers once they realize the distinction between educating and persuading. When they learn the skills and process of consultative selling, they develop a good set of discovery questions and become more effective in persuading decision-makers.

Common Misconception: The only good salesperson is an aggressive salesperson.  That is, someone with an outgoing, high-energy, flat-out fun personality. While that method can work for small, transactional sales, it doesn’t ensure success in a business-to-business, complex sales environment. Those kinds of sales require  consultative  selling skills and a customized sales process. Personality is not the issue. Either personality can be a star in complex sales-if the skills and process are there.

An aptitude test showed that an eventual star in the life insurance business had, as he joked, the personality for success as a mortician. He was low keyed, reserved, and introverted. Yet over the years he was frequently the top salesperson in his company nationwide. As a customer (insurance, not funeral), I enjoyed laughing with him about his highly successful “contrariness.”

Common Misconception: It’s the territory, not the salesperson. An envious colleague might cry foul: “She has the best territory!” But it’s not really that simple, is it? The best territory often gets that way because the best salesperson is working it. As vice president of sales for a manufacturer, I once put a strong salesperson in a territory generally regarded as a lost cause. (Why I did that is another story with another lesson.) To our surprise, that top producer remained a top producer despite the change in territory. Over the years, I’ve seen similar results.

Common Misconception: Referrals are the best way to build companies.  Many companies track where new business comes from, of course, and, in many industries, find that a large percentage comes from referrals, especially for professional service firms. Commonsense says to go after more and more referrals to gain business. Yes, time ought to be spent cultivating referrals. But it’s also important to determine how difficult it is to grow business that way versus other ways. The fundamentals still apply: It’s easier to get business from current customers than to find new ones.

The chart below shows that “flipping the funnel” and going after the three segments that involve current customers has a greater payback than going after those same segments with new prospects gained through referral.

Difficulty of Acquiring Business
Existing Clients vs. Referred Prospects
Scale/Degree of Difficulty: 1 = easiest, 6 = hardest

Another misconception about referrals is that they are passive: You don’t need to take action to increase the number you receive. Not true. We have a course dedicated to increasing referrals through ways you can act on and control.

If you’d like to learn more  about persuasive communication, and how it can help you sell more and market more effectively, just call us at 847-446-0008. Our proprietary consultative selling course, FOCIS, provides the necessary skills and customized sales process business developers need. And we’d love to hear about your contrarian success stories.