Weekly Bulletin October 2011
Working in the technology and software sectors, one might assume that discussions in a sales meeting would have to be predominantly technical. This is not true in the slightest and this is what can cause sales to stall even before the process has begun!
I have sat in many sales meetings over the years and witnessed many blank faces around a table. These blank faces result from too much technical talk from the sales person about a product or service. Not everyone is technical and able to interpret the technical jargon in order to understand how this product can help them or their business.
I want to share with you a story that the MD of a New Zealand software distributor told me recently. We were discussing the challenges he constantly faced with sales guys who were just too comfortable learning the software features. He described how they went away and studied all about a new piece of software so they understood in as much technical detail as possible what this software product did.
Armed with this knowledge the sales people believed they could bamboozle prospective customers into buying based upon technical knowledge and a superior feature set. Sadly the more they learned the more technical they became and the more their language became jargon and gobbledegook!
As you can imagine, sales then stalled. Customers were desperate to know what the software could do for them and how it would help their business. But they were getting ‘featured to death’ and the sales people just couldn’t see it.
Then someone hit upon a brilliant idea. They would introduce a ‘swear box’ to all sales meetings. Yes a swear box!
Every sales person had to carry a swear box with them to all sales meetings and place this in front of the prospective customer. If the seller used any language which the customer didn’t understand or could not see the relevance of they were fined $2!
Pretty soon salesmen started to change their behaviour because they were learning through their pocket. They stopped presenting and started asking questions so they would know what to focus upon. After the initial flurry of massive fines, behaviour changed and sales results rocketed! Competitors took notice and instead of it costing salesmen money in fines they were making increased commissions. This is a true story.
I’m not sure if that would work in UK but it’s certainly worth thinking about as a technique to focus the mind of sellers and help them to focus not on what the software does but what it can do for the customer.
As a small software business, you will know how important it is to have effective sales people working for you and bringing in business. If you would like to discuss how to get the best out of your sales people with the help of an experienced software sales coach, then contact me on 01536 771440 or visit my website.
