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 The Seven Deadly Myths of Selling |
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作者：资料 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
The Seven Deadly Myths of Selling
By Michelle Nichols
Just because something is widely believed doesn't make it true. Here's a reality check on "conventional wisdom" that is anything but
What do mythology and sales have in common? More than you might think. While many of us may be amused to read of the ancient Greeks' reverence for Zeus or the Vikings' awe of Thor, many who sell for a living seldom question some of their own cherished beliefs -- and that's a big mistake. Remember, myths are gospel truths to those who turn to them for explanations of the incomprehensible. Their falsehood can only be seen from a dispassionate distance.
One of the sales myths I regularly encounter -- particularly in this challenging economy -- is that it is better to concentrate on beating competitors than serving customers. I call this competitive selling, and it's a bad policy because, in the short term, dropping prices or adding freebies will reduce margins and profits. In the long term, that leaves a business with less of the maneuvering room and flexibility it needs to stay in the black.
WASTED EFFORT. The more effort salespeople put into analyzing the competition, the less time they will have left to understand, cultivate, and maintain connections with customers. This can be a fatal mistake, since it opens the door to the very competitors they were worried about in the first place! Never forget, your customers are your competitors' prospects.
Don't get me wrong, it would be downright foolish to ignore the competition altogether. What I'm talking about is a question of focus -- the need to make a rational decision about the best way to direct your attention. Think of it as being like one of those trick pictures, the visual illusions that don't appear to be much more than a blur until, suddenly, a startling 3-D image leaps off the page when you look at it in just the right way. Likewise, if you fixate on your competition, the big picture will be lost.
Here are my seven myths of competitive selling. I discovered them the hard way, and I pass them on in the hope that readers can benefit from my mistakes.
Myth 1: Find the gap in your competition and fill it. Many years ago, I was hired to sell a midrange solution to a problem that, as I discovered, very few customers actually needed a new way to solve, since there were products at the top and bottom ends of the market that already filled their needs. Yes, there was a gap -- but the opening wasn't large enough to justify the effort of trying to fill it. If my employer had focused on what clients wanted, rather than what competitors weren't offering, that simple truth would have been blindingly obvious -- and a lot of time, money, and effort wouldn't have been wasted.
Myth 2: To increase sales, pressure your customers. Selling should never involve tangling with customers in a war of wills. I remember once, when I was rather new to selling and it was the end of the quarter, I had only one viable prospect likely to place a major order. My sales manager demanded that I call that customer twice a day, every day, until the contract was signed. That wasn't selling, it was harassment! If the customer had actually signed before the quarter ended, you can bet it would have been at the worst possible terms as far as my company's bottom line was concerned.
Myth 3: Competition in the office increases sales. Some sales managers believe in-house contests drive sales, and they make a big deal about rewarding the top salesperson. This approach can backfire if it decreases the margins on each sale for the sake of boosting overall revenue. Do too much of that and total profits can shrink as quickly as the morale of employees, who must cope with a competitive and cutthroat office environment. Rival outfits are competition enough. It's folly to encourage more of it around the watercooler, especially in uncertain times likes these.
Myth 4: Selling is like pro sports. Yes, both share many key concepts: teamwork, winning, competition, and training. But there is one key difference. In almost every sport, the runner-up still takes home some cash. Not so in sales. When there's a million-dollar contract to be awarded, it's winner-take-all. Second place gets nothing, not even a "Miss Congeniality" sash for being such a nice loser.
Myth 5: The best vendor always wins. If you really are, or represent, the best vendor, you can be lulled into taking the customer's business for granted. Adopt that attitude at your peril! And if you aren't the best vendor, rejoice that rival salespeople believe the myth. The fact that they do means you still have a chance to come from behind and snatch the sale from their overconfident grasp.
Myth 6: Sales is a numbers game. Some companies require their salespeople to make a minimum quota of outbound phone calls every day. Unless you have an unbelievably well-targeted list to work from, chances are that telemarketing will produce a very low return on the time invested. This grim fact is apt to leave salespeople so burned out and depressed that, when they do connect with a genuinely hot prospect, they lack the energy for an enthusiastic, meaningful conversation of the sort most likely to produce a purchase order.
Myth 7: Customers care only about price. It's obvious why so much of the selling conversation revolves around the bottom line: It's easy to talk about, there's plenty of information, and it's quantifiable. But anyone who believes that is where the process starts and ends should seriously consider finding a new line of work -- a field where he or she can put their honesty, integrity, and desire to help to good use. After all, that's what salespeople do when we're not talking about unit cost!
It's a challenge to ignore the siren song of focusing your efforts on your competition. In my next column, I'll share what I believe is a better way to sell. But for now, watch out for those dangerous myths: Believing in them may be costing you money. Happy Selling!
from businessweek
作者：资料 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 The Seven Deadly Myths of Selling -- 资料 - (12188 Byte) 2003-9-08 周一, 10:46 (762 reads)
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