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Sharon Drew Morgen
Business Ethics: How The Sales Function Can Transmit Company Values
by Sharon Drew Morgen
I recently got a “thank-you” call from a man who read my new e-book Buying Facilitation. “Boy,” he said, “this method sure helps me close more deals and make more money. Thanks!”
“Glad I could help. Is that all you’re looking for? To make more money?”
“What do you mean…all? What else is there? Sales is about closing deals and making money, right?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t notice the value of becoming a trusted advisor, or how you can use the seller’s role as one of a servant-leader to lead your clients to discover their solutions quickly.” |
“Well, I noticed all that. But it’s all in service of me closing deals and making money, right? I don’t mind doing it nicely if it gives me better results. But what’s sales about if my job isn’t about me making money?”
I’m wondering how many people out there still believe sales to be a job that is focused on making money? Or only about making money. All of us want to get paid fairly for what we do. The question is: how can we make money and make nice.
Most people get paid for doing a day’s work. But most sales people get paid for the results of their work, not necessarily for a day’s work. This leads to the tendency of sellers to have a different focus in their jobs than their non-sales colleagues: they often focus on ‘closing’ a sale rather than on the results of the interaction, or on ‘doing a deal’ rather than making sure the client has all their ducks in a row prior to making a purchase. As a result, sales practices and sellers can be seen as aggressive, pushy, eager to get immediate results, and less aware of the other person in the interaction.
What causes money, greed, manipulation, and self-interest to prevail at the expense of serving? What’s stopping sellers from using their jobs to promote respect, integrity, servant-leadership, collaboration, and trust – for their customers, for their companies, and for themselves? Why is there a belief that it’s not possible to serve and make money? To support and be aggressive? To be a trusted advisor and close rapidly?
I once began a Buying Facilitation program at a major brokerage house. As I was being introduced, the manager mentioned that my program was the precursor to the program they were having the following week on ‘closing’ techniques. I was dumbfounded.
“You won’t need that! You’ll be able to close twice as many accounts in half the time after this program. What else do you need?”
“I know you say that’s possible, but I don’t believe it. It’s one thing to have values. It’s another to make money.” After the program, the decision was taken to delay the ‘closing’ program and give it 8 weeks to see what the results would be from using Buying Facilitation. It turned out that the brokers had a 25% increase in closed sales – the first month after the training. They cancelled the ‘closing’ program.
Given our business climate today, and the need to bring values throughout our corporations, and into our interactions with staff and clients, let’s discuss how the actual function of sales can be used as a major delivery vehicle of ethics.
CONSULTATIVE SALES
As a start, let’s look at the model and beliefs that modern sales folks operate from.
Fifteen years ago, Consultative Sales found its way into the sales culture. The promise here was to move away from just pitching product and include buyers into the process by asking the buyers questions – to help a buyer actually recognize a need for themselves so they’d clearly understand that they have a problem.
 I’m not convinced that the addition of Consultative Sales has changed the equation any; the process is based on the theory that if the client discovers a need, he’ll make a purchase. The questions are therefore manipulative: they are cleverly rooted in those areas in the client’s environment that the seller knows will come up lacking, based on the seller’s understanding of the buyer’s environment and probable needs.
“Why do you ask questions?” I repeatedly ask consultative sellers?
“To discover what the client needs.”
“And, what will you do with that information once you have it?”
“Understand their environment better.”
“To what end?”
“To help them solve their problems [with my product].”
And there you have it: the assumption that just because the buyer may have a need in the seller’s product area, they will be ready, willing, and able to align all of their internal systems and variables in a way that will allow for something new to enter their system.
Let’s look at the above assumption. On the face of it, consultative questions seem to be supportive of the buyer, ostensibly showing care about the buyer’s needs. But if a client has a need, does that mean she’ll make a purchase? Does it mean that all of the internal deciding factors are ready to do something different? That the client wants to follow the path that your product will lead?
Doesn’t the buyer have a string of decisions to make that are independent of the seller’s product?
If the buyer has a need in one area, it is only part of a systemic issue that must be solved internally and systemically, and it can’t be solved by the simple addition of a product. Not to mention that the buyer may have a specific time factors to weigh, partnering issues, strategy issues. We have no way of knowing the micro elements that maintain and create the problems we perceive.
When sellers assume their job is to understand the buyer’s needs and solve them, they are committing the ultimate disrespect:- that an outsider knows more than the insider;
- that the insider has been unsuccessful in solving his own problem;
- that the problem is a simple one (and eschews all of the politics, partnerships, initiatives, and personalities that have created and maintained the problem) and can be solved by purchasing a new ‘something’;
- that all of the internal variables contained within the prospect’s culture will easily assemble around the seller’s solution in a way that will serve the organization’s mission and strategic vision.
In other words, at the point that sellers believe they have a solution for their buyers before the buyer has discovered all of the systems pieces that need to be lined up, and before buyers can specify all of the systemic components of what a solution would need to look like, they are committing the ultimate act of disrespect.
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sharon drew morgen is the author of NYTimes Best seller Selling with Integrity. She speaks, teaches and consults globally around her new sales model, Buying Facilitation. She can be reached at sdm@austin.rr.com.
http://www.newsalesparadigm.com
http://www.decisionconnection.com
512-457-0246
Morgen Facilitations, Inc.
Austin, TX |
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