The Everlasting Secret to Improving Sales

Throughout my career in sales, a lot has changed. For instance, the technology designed to support the sales process (and the customers we’re selling to) and the accepted best practices for engaging, nurturing and closing prospects are all very different from what I used as a new sales rep for IBM in the early 1990s.

Not surprisingly, the techniques we use in our sales process are very different, too. Instead of pushing people into thinking they have a need for a particular product or service (when they really might not), we focus instead on making prospective customers aware of significant business issues and how our service might remove them. Put another way, sales today is more consultative in nature, which means the ways we teach salespeople to sell must be structured around that approach, too.

That’s made one thing more important than ever: Inspiring trust.

When we work with sales teams today, we teach them how to ask questions that uncover the most critical business issues and how to help a customer prioritize the importance of those issues. That’s a notable change from 10 or 20 years ago, when salespeople were taught to identify a need and then use that information to manipulate a prospect into thinking if they didn’t immediately buy a product or service that something dire would happen and the deal would be off the table.

Nowadays, sales manipulation is a recipe for sales disaster for a couple of reasons.

1. Prospects are more educated about their own needs and the solution landscape before they ever engage a salesperson.
2. If you do force customers into buying a product they don’t really need, it will likely backfire—most likely in the form of angry customers who have no problem sharing their bad experience with the rest of the world.

This is why establishing and reinforcing trust is—and always has been—a critical part of the sales process.

In fact, one thing that’s never changed about sales is that customers appreciate salespeople who genuinely convey a desire to help them solve their problems as they work together throughout the sales process, from the first call through the close and implementation. Over time, that helpfulness inspires trust—and trust, as you probably know from your own buying experiences, often leads to positive sales outcomes. Even when a prospect chooses not to buy the solution you originally proposed, they’ll go out of their way to look for an opportunity that allows them to work with you.

Even better, their positive experiences with you will inspire them to refer you to their network. And that singular action ultimately will be worth a lot more than pushing one sale down the throat of a prospect that doesn’t really want or need your offering.

So, are you teaching your sales reps to inspire trust with prospects? Or are you still relying on the aggressive, manipulative tactics of yesteryear? If it’s the latter, it’s time to consider evolving your approach.

Kendra Lee is a top IT Seller, Prospect Attraction Expert, author of the newly released book “The Sales Magnet” and the award winning book "Selling Against the Goal" and president of KLA Group. Specializing in the IT industry, KLA Group works with companies to break in and exceed revenue objectives in the Small and Midmarket Business (SMB) segment.