The Sales Industry Needs a Sales Transformation

Recently, I was at a networking meeting with CEOs, CSOs, and senior sales leaders who all use traditional sales approaches or methodologies. They complained that their salespeople are struggling to meet targets, which, of course, hurts their top-line growth. As a result, their focus turned to a dozen or so top customers, keeping them happy and loyal. No longer could they rely on steady growth from new customers coming from their salesforce’s efforts. To keep shareholders happy, there were no other options than cutting costs to achieve budgets. It wasn’t what they liked, but they seemed to accept it. Business is tough at the moment, they said.

Then they asked, “What is the difference with your sales approach and why is it so successful?” I said, “It’s not just a different sales approach; it’s a sales transformation. It’s a journey that requires investment in time, money, and support from the top to bottom across all the company functions”.

I added some context because I got them intrigued. I continued: “So far, over the last 20 years or so, salespeople have been trained to follow a certain process. It doesn’t matter if that is:

• SPIN selling
• SNAP selling
• MEDDIC
• Value selling
• BANT
• Consultative selling

They all have one thing in common: they sell from a Seller’s perspective. Their process starts by understanding the customer’s situation, identifying gaps, and determining the customer’s needs and wants. Then, they sell their solutions to close these gaps. These approaches require many open questions that their customers are less willing to answer. Unfortunately, the ultimate objective of these Salespeople is to close deals at any cost.

They nodded their heads in unison as if I just had described their biggest problem.

Selling can be done differently

I changed pace, all eyes on me now: “Selling with the Buyer’s Perspective is different. Here, salespeople recognize that in this ever-changing world, customers may not even know what they need. Customers are somewhat stuck in the middle and often fall back to their status quo, that’s what they know, that’s what they trust. So, trying to identify needs, as in the traditional sales methods, will not work. Also, customers recognize the traditional sales questioning techniques and are getting tired of answering them. Customers are looking for help but only want to talk to salespeople who understand that”. “And how do you make your salespeople understand that”? they asked. I said:

“For that, you need to have:

• A customer growth mindset
• A sales process aligned with the buying process

A Customer Growth Mindset

Fundamental to Selling with the Buyer’s Perspective is to see selling as helping. You help customers to see a different perspective on their challenges. And your ultimate goal is to help the customer grow their business. Their success is your success. To be able to do that, salespeople learn to see the customer’s situation and challenges from their perspective. They ask themselves when preparing for sales calls and meetings:

• What are possible angles to explore to generate growth or more profit for the customer?
• How to define these growth ideas?
• Would these make a strategic difference to their business?
• What insightful information can I share that may change the customer’s perspective?
• What success stories can I share where I have helped other similar customers bring context into the conversation?
• What third-party research would back up these ideas?

Their mindset is absolutely not about selling solutions. Not yet.

They put on their business acumen hats and collaborate with the customer as if they are on the same team with the same goals. The customer doesn’t see them as salespersons or account managers; instead, they are interested in continuing the conversations because these Trusted Advisors may have a point, and more stakeholders should get involved.

A Sales Process aligned with the Buying Process

The second fundamental difference when selling with the Buyer’s Perspective is respecting and appreciating that customers have their own buying process. There are always more stakeholders involved, and some are hidden from the Salesperson. In most cases, they are at different stages of their buying process.

But here is the thing: Wherever stakeholders are on the buying clock, the discovery framework the salesperson is using for collaboration remains the same, but what the customer discovers is changing. That makes sense to the customer because the topic of conversations changes along with their buying process stages.

Most of the collaboration with stakeholders in the buying room is in these two buying phases: Why Change? and Change to What? Trusted Advisors who are selling with the Buyer’s Perspective facilitate these meetings until there is consensus that:

• a change is needed to capitalize on business opportunities or avoid risks like doing nothing
• and there is an agreement on what solution criteria should be in place to make those business growth ideas work.

This may take more time than traditional selling with the seller’s perspective sales approaches. But it all pays off. Often, the deal value is bigger, and loyalty to the change is greater”.

Leaving Thoughts

We were getting ready for dinner, so our conversation was interrupted by the host guiding us to taxis that took us to the dinner venue. I could see questions and interest in their mind. In the taxi, one of the CSOs asked me, “Can this be done? How long did the sales transformation of your company take?” I replied, “Selling with the Buyer’s Perspective is effective, but it’s more than a sales approach. It’s also more than following a few training modules. You need to see it as an investment that requires buy-in and leadership from the top and..a lot of sales coaching from the sales executives’ direct manager. Without these two support functions, salespeople will fall back into old habits.”

We arrived at the restaurant, where more guests were waiting. I quickly summarized for them: “So, yes, it takes time, and am super proud of the senior management support we received. Bless all our sales frontliners and managers to hang in there because we are making a difference and are far ahead of the competition”.

I lost them in the bigger crowd but got them to ponder if the sales industry needs a sales transformation.

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