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| This is a weekly column transcribed from my Radio Show. The "Top Story" is the major discussion each week in which I address in great depth and detail, aspects of selling that are pertinent to your job everyday. |
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I want to talk today about why salespeople fail. It has always broken my heart over the years when I find out that salespeople leave the companies that they're working for because almost all the time it's not because the salesperson is a bad salesperson or the company they're working for is a bad company. It's not because some competitor is stealing way too much of the business and the market opportunity doesn't exist anymore. There are so many reasons that salespeople fail.
I've done a lot of research on this, and I've come up with major reasons why salespeople fail, and they fall into three categories. When I do my live seminars across the country, people invariably ask that question. Why do some people succeed in selling, and why are some people failures? Let's look at the top three reasons why salespeople fail, and maybe this can give you some insight reason into your sales career.
The first reason salespeople fail really has nothing to do with the sales process. It's not because of a lack of activity or saying the wrong thing or not doing enough of this or that. The first and major reason salespeople fail is because they have a crisis in their belief system. Those of you who have listened to the show in the past know that the base of the Total Selling pyramid is all about having the right attitude. I mean belief, enthusiasm, persistence, optimism, consistency, empathy, and these types of things. When I first interview a salesperson who is not doing well, either they're a salesperson who was at the top of their game and all of a sudden they're not, or someone who is struggling to get going. I always start asking questions to figure out if maybe they've had a crushing defeat that's causing them to have their belief system affected, or they've had a crisis and their belief system is just shot.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. About ten years ago I was working with a large investment banking firm in the Twin Cities, that's Minneapolis and St. Paul. I was approached by a man who from the outside in had it made. He was a top producer in his industry. He had been the number one salesperson in his company for probably eight of the last ten years. All of his dreams had come true. He was able to donate a lot of money to his church; that was very important to him. He raised his family and got his children all through school. Then what happened was that he had the misfortune of putting a number of his best clients into a stock that for one reason or another tanked. It went from being worth maybe $50-$60 per share to being bankrupt in about a year's time.
Now this man had a tremendous crisis in his belief system. What happened was he was not able to get on the phone and call these people and explain to them what was happening. And before you knew it most of his business, or the book as it's called in the investment banking business, was starting to dissipate right in front of his eyes.
This was a good client I was working with. I was quite surprised when this man who was one of their top people, and in fact was the top salesperson for eight of the last ten years, called me up and asked me to meet with him offsite. I said, "Sure, I'll do anything you want." We met at a restaurant that was about twenty miles from his office. That's how embarrassed he was about talking about his particular situation.
After I talked to him for awhile, I found out that he didn't believe anymore that he was the best investment banker for his clients. He didn't believe that his company had the best products and services anymore. He didn't believe that he could to the best job for his clients. Because of that crisis in his belief system, he was afraid to call his clients.
We talked for a long time about this. I took him back into his past and asked him about what had made him successful in his past experiences and what was going on in his business now that could maybe offer him a glimmer of hope that there was really something left that he could do. Over the next series of days we met every morning for breakfast. Slowly he was able to rebuild his belief system. It's a happy ending because within the next nine to twelve months he rebuilt his book. He took in a younger, junior broker who had a lot of enthusiasm, and together they rebuilt that book to the point that after three years he was right back on top, being the lead salesperson for that company.
So you can understand that your belief system is one of the major areas of your selling career that you really ought to focus on, even though it really has nothing to do with selling skills or sales planning or sales practice, which are the three parts of the concept that I call Total Selling.
There's a great book that was written by Frank Bettger How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling. In that book he talks about how he really had to have a strong belief system in order to be successful. It's a great book. If you have a chance to stop in the bookstore here in town, or go onto amazon.com, you have to find the book called How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger.
The second reason salespeople fail is directly related to the sales process. The second reason people fail is that they have not enough prospects. This is something we talked about very briefly last week when I shared with you the three levels of prospects: not enough, too many, and just enough. I explained to you that most people do have not enough prospects. If this becomes a chronic case, it can become something that absolutely makes you fail in your selling career.
What happens is that without enough prospects to call on, you are paralyzed by the objections that come your way from a current client, or you find yourself in a situation where you're working with somebody trying to get their business and something comes up that you are not able to answer or you can't face. The result of this is that you are not as strong in asking people to make decisions. You find that your activity levels go way down, and you're at the mercy of companies that are asking you to cut your prices or enhance your service. You find yourself in a position where sales isn't fun. Let me tell you, if you're not having fun in your sales career that should be a big red flag that you're doing something wrong and that you're about to go out of business. You just don't know is yet.
I have another salesperson I'll tell you about that I worked with in a Midwestern city who was again a top-rated salesperson in his company. The problem that he had was that 50% of his business came from one particular client, and over the years he had developed a very high level of distaste for this particular client. They didn't see eye to eye on anything: the weather, politics, food, business practices, or whatever. They just became polar opposites.
The problem the salesperson had is that he had not prospected in such a long time that the whole idea of his not being able to call on that particular account was inconceivable. One day he called me up and told me he was going to leave his company and to work for a competitor. I of course was shocked to hear this. I said, "Bob, tell me why you want to do that." He went on to tell me about how this one client was giving him a hard time, and he wasn't sure how he was going to go about rebuilding his book and all that type of thing.
I took him to the library and we talked about the best type of prospects for him to call on, and whom he'd been successful with in the past. You could just see the excitement start to build. As he looked at his territory he saw so many companies that he had never contacted, or hadn't been to in literally years.
Once he saw that he didn't have enough prospects and that the only thing he had to do was schedule the time to go out there and start calling on some of these new or inactive clients, he realized that he would be able to build his business to a sufficient part so he could go to that one client and either rearrange the energy in that relationship or be willing to walk away from it. And indeed, what happened was just that. Over the next six or nine months, he was able to open lots of new accounts. He actually had a falling out with a particular buyer at this company that had been half of his business. When the owner if the company found out why the salesperson had had a falling out with this company, he fired the buyer and brought the salesperson back in. Talk about a story with a sweet ending. Not only did he rebuild his business by making sure he had sufficient prospects, he was able to win back the large piece of business that he was willing to walk away from.
The third reason salespeople fail is probably the hardest to diagnose but has the most power to help you once you recognize it. The third reason people fail is that they don't ask enough obligating questions. What I mean by this is most salespeople, when they're not willing to ask obligating questions, are perfectly comfortable, way too comfortable, getting stuck in presenting, in what I call Step Five of The Six Steps to Excellence in Selling. What that means is that people keep talking and talking and talking and talking, and they don't allow the prospect to decide if this is something they want to do or not. The only way to find out if you're close to having somebody buy from you, or if you're close to getting the appointment, or if you're close to reaching the point where people know what your offer is and how it's going to benefit them is to stop talking and ask an obligating question.
In fact, this was my problem when I was a new salesperson. In one of my new positions I had a very experienced sales manager work with me. After a couple of calls that he went on with me, and after he saw my results over a period of several months, he said, "Warren, you're not a professional salesperson. You're a professional visitor." Professional visitors are those people that talk, talk, talk; they come back to the office; they say, "Oh, this is going to be great. I'm going to get this. I'm going to get that." And they never bring the business in the door because they haven't stopped to ask the obligating question.
Some of you who are new in sales might be saying, "Oh, I could never ask those kind of hard questions. That would be manipulative. That would be using high pressure." And you know what, folks? It has nothing to do with being manipulative; it has nothing to do with using high pressure. The reason that we ask obligating questions is so that the buyer or the prospect or the account can stop and think about the question we've asked. They really have to say to themselves, "Do I want to buy this product? Do I want to work with this person? Is this the company I'd like to partner with?"
You might think of asking obligating questions in the theme of what I call asking "what's next?" Think in your mind, "What's next?" That will determine for you what the obligating question will be.
So those are the three reason why salespeople fail. The first reason in my view is that their belief system has a crisis. The second reason is they don't have enough prospects. And the third reason is they get stuck in presenting and they fail to ask the obligating question.
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– Warren
Wechsler |
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