Are technology companies really any different from most other businesses when it comes to effective selling methods? Why try to break the mould of tried and tested sales techniques when they have stood the test of time?

Many of the sales techniques that you will hear about have not undergone rigorous testing as to how effective they actually are. Sales trainers pick up techniques from each other and before you know it, there is a body of “common knowledge” of what works and what doesn’t. Yet these very same techniques have never been scientifically tested as to their effectiveness. The problem is, if you ask the top 5% of a sales force what they believe makes them such good salespeople when face to face with a client, they often do not actually know. You may think this sounds ridiculous but consider this. They may be doing certain things again and again which they attribute as the behaviour that is getting them such a good sales volume. Whereas, if you placed an independent observer, they may find other behaviour traits that correlate very highly to a larger number of sales. So, the salesperson thinks behaviour X is leading to sales, but the independent observer notices that the client suddenly becomes more receptive when behaviour Y is seen.

Where does that leave us? With a lot of sales techniques recommended without anything other than anecdotal evidence.

Consumers and business people of today are a lot more sophisticated than they used to be. They have to be. Consider how many times per day we get hit by offers for products and services. We have had to build up an armour plated resistance and protective mindset or we would go broke in a frenzy of consumer spending. Pushy salespeople, the cliché that it is, are more likely to turn people off nowadays than before. The reason being that we see it more than ever.

A lower pressure selling approach is needed.

The key distinction between the less pushy approach and the harder closing school of thought, is whether or not you are going for repeat business. There have been some empirical studies showing that the harder closing approach can be effective for low cost one off sales. However, it starts to break down for higher fee, multi-step consultative type projects. These have a greater emphasis on developing a good working relationship between salesperson and client. Fortunately for us, the school of hard closing is not conducive to such a favourable climate. This is good news because while your competitors are reading the outdated sales literature that turns off clients, you will be selling in a superior way for this kind of business. You are turning the percentages towards them doing business with you instead of your competition.

Business is never about doing any one thing exceptionally well. It is about doing a lot of things just slightly better than everyone else. The cumulative effect compounds into a superior service and more attractive proposition to the client.

How do we know these “supposedly” new techniques are more effective? Through studies that have been conducted in recent years. A number of researchers accompanied the top sales people in various organisations and identified specific recurring behaviours that were measurable during the sales calls. They then counted how many times each behaviour was seen. The cumulative totals of all the top sales peoples behaviours were then analysed to see which were the most frequently observed. The same was done for the lower performing salespeople in each organisation. Finally, the totals for the high performing groups and the low performing groups were compared.

The results were surprising. Many of the behaviours most would attribute to good sales performance were non-existent in the higher performing groups. In addition, the heavy emphasis on closing the sale in most sales literature seemed out of place, since the top salespeople seemed to just fall into the decision as a natural conclusion when the time was right. There was no pushing or trying to trap the person into a decision there and then.

This quantitative approach led to a more measurable way of discovering what works and what doesn’t. As a direct marketing advocate, I place great importance in testing what works in the real world, rather than relying on ivory tower untested theories. This new methodology makes me more confident that this new approach to selling technology services is a better way.

Most people reading this who have a strong sales background may find my comments disagreeable, if not downright wrong! That is fine, as I have said before, don’t believe anything you read, just apply your intellect and decide for yourself what makes sense. I can understand what happens when we are indoctrinated with a particular type of sales training again and again. It becomes a “truth” - even if far from it. I used to love reading all these sales books, fantasising about how good I would be once I had mastered all the techniques. Some seemed to work for me, but many just didn’t seem right somehow. They were too aggressive and I felt uncomfortable using them. Consequently, they were sidelined in my arsenal of “sales tricks.”

Perhaps my own experience mirrored what others were finding; yet they dare not question sales folk lore. Who are us mortal salespeople to question the gods and gurus? Experience has taught me there are no real gurus. There are only people who have experience. Much of what they teach may be accurate but some may not be. Your conscious mind is the filter that has to ultimately decide.