Hey, Jay here.
Recently, I was working with a good client of mine, helping them find a suitable Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) that would help them manage their leads, their contacts and their sales activity.
That should be easy, I thought, there are some clear leaders in this field, with superior products and services. It should just be a matter of matching up my client’s needs with a well known and respected provider.
How wrong was I!
Firstly it was hard to find someone that wanted to listen. A simple thing, taught at most reputable sales training programs - ‘god gave you 2 ears and one mouth’, ’shut up and listen and double your sales’…
Secondly, it was hard to find someone that would call us back!
When they finally did, I set up an online demo with my client and one of the market leaders. I thought, ‘thank god, maybe we can get on with this now’.
How wrong I was!
The following is an edited transcript of that online session (the seller was 10 minutes late):
Seller: “Hi how ya doing, wow it’s been a long week, we had a bit of a do last night with the team - end of month, my apologies i’m a bit hung over”
Client: “No problem, sounds like your team is doing well”
Seller: “Yeah it’s been a big month!” “Ok, if you go to www.gotomeeting.com and type in the following you should be able to see my screen…”
Note: The seller didn’t send that through prior to the session!
Client, 15 mins later: “OK, i’m logged on”
Seller, at about 300 words a minute: “OK, so if you look at the top of the screen you’ll notice a menu list, blah, blah, blah, click on the leads tab and you’ll notice, blah, blah, blah, and then if you go to the menu list you’ll see a blah, blah, blah…”
Client: “Sorry to stop you, but can I ask questions as we go, can we make this session interactive?”
Seller: “Yeah, i’d actually prefer to keep going, because I find that when I do, I end up answering most of your questions as we go, can you write them down, and I can answer any not covered later. Is that OK?”
Client: “Well ah, sure”
Oh, bad move, I know my client and he is NOT happy being shut down like that, but he is too polite to say anything.
Seller: “So, blah, blah blah ginger, blah, blah, blah….”
Client: “I’m sorry, but my screen hasn’t caught up yet and because it is really important to me that I cover all this stuff off, could I ask that you slow down a bit”.
Seller: “Where are you up to?”
Client: “About 3 - 5 screens behind I think, I can’t tell”
Seller: “Well that’s just wierd, I’ve never had this problem before and i’ve done hundreds of presentations like this”. “Jay is your connection OK” - yes it was.
Client: “Yeah, well it’s a bit of a problem for me, could you slow down a bit while I catch up - oh there we go - please continue - but a bit slower”
Seller at 300 words per minute: “OKAY….. where were we, right, blah, blah, blah ginger, blah, blah, blah”
Seller: “So you keepin’ up there Bill, ha, huh…”
Client: “No i’m quite lost, but just continue and Jay can debrief me later”
Seller: “Ok, Jay you with me…. blah, blah, blah ginger, blah, blah, blah”
The call ended with my client responding with one word sentences (which was really different to how he started the conversation) and an agreement to trial the tool for the next month free of charge (a generous offer).
My client didn’t buy. In fact he said he’d rather chew his own arm off, despite the fact that he loved the tool.
So let’s look at where the seller went wrong.
Firstly the seller didn’t ask a single question about what we were using now, and what is was we were looking for (going forward). They didn’t ask about why we were now looking for a CRM solution - about what had recently changed - that meant we now needed to seek one.
They didn’t ask a single question about what was important to us in a CRM (our values), and not a single question about how we would decide (decision criteria) which CRM was right for us. In fact they didn’t ask a single question of us at all, before launching into their presentation.
Secondly, the seller invalidated my client’s needs and made him feel unimportant - “yeah, i’d actually prefer to keep going, because I find”. It was becoming clear that this was all about the seller and not about my client.
Thirdly, the seller totally lost rapport (they had it at the start, so it must have been a real mystery to them as to what happened?) when they ignored my clients request to slow the pace and inadvertently called him “wierd”.
Pacing and basic language control is absolutely core to rapport - that’s NLP 101! As Sharon drew Morgan says, “without rapport, there is no buyer, without a buyer there is no sale.” How true for this seller.
Finally, the seller completely ignored the obvious decision maker (not that she identified him upfront) and alienated him.
I was embarrassed to be there, I was embarrassed to have to discuss it afterwards, with my client.
The seller was a clear market leader, this was a senior account manager. This provider charges double what anyone else charges. And they were absolutely appauling in their sales execution.
That’s how not to sell! That’s how not to make a sale.
We decided to go with a neat little solution from Zoho. The best part is that it’s totally free and we didn’t have to talk with a single sales person - check it out - http://crm.zoho.com
Thanks for reading, hope this helps.
Jay
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