« Selling is simple, isn’t it? | Home | Drifting away from your core sales positioning »
In Praise of Passion: Selling’s Secret Weapon
By Ian Brodie | December 17, 2007
The stereotype many people have of salespeople is of an amoral hired gun. A sharp-suited, sharp-talking huckster who doesn’t care what he’s peddling as long as it brings in the money.
But in reality, the opposite is true of all truly successful salespeople: they have a real passion and belief in the products and services they sell.
In my 15 years as a consultant I’ve worked with and observed hundreds of sales people in action. I’ve seen very different selling styles and cultures, and helped salespeople from countries as diverse as Iran, the US, Lebanon, Algeria, Finland, Spain, Panama and Japan. Yet across all these countries and cultures, the very best salespeople share a real passion in the quality of their products and a sincere belief that their customers will genuinely benefit from using them. And I’ve witnessed that passion overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to win a sale, or protect an account from an undercutting competitor.
We live in a cynical world today, with everyone’s BS detector constantly set on max. And it doesn’t matter how many body language or NLP courses you’ve been on; if you aren’t being sincere - if you don’t really believe in your products with a passion; then your customers will pick this up in an instant.
Winston Churchill said it best: “Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe”.
Churchill knew the power of passion and belief. And we saw the power of his belief in his great speeches which convinced and mobilised a nation at its time of greatest need.
OK - great in theory - but what can we as sales coaches, consultants, trainers and managers practically do to harness the power of belief? How can we make sure our sales teams are really passionate about our products and services and can get that passion across to customers?
First, we need to make sure that the salespeople we hire are capable of being passionate. Emotion is often frowned upon in business - and especially in the supposedly macho business of sales. But without emotion - and the strength of character to express it; we cannot communicate our passion. We need to hire people able to maturely express their emotions. Not just to wear their heart on their sleeve; but to be able to convince with passion.
Next we need to make sure we incubate belief in our products amongst our sales teams. Don’t just train them in the technicalities of the product and in its features and benefits. Really show them what the product can do for our customers - what an impact it can have on their lives and their businesses. Use case studies and examples in training. Better still, take the salespeople out to “spend a day in the life” of their customers - they will benefit immeasurably. And make sure they keep talking to customers about how they use the product and its impact. Not just the cold, hard financial impact - but what they personally get from the product in their own words.
Finally, make sure your sales managers “walk the talk” too - and really support the passion of your sales-force. All too often it’s seen as “cool” to be ultra-hip and cynical. Yet this cynicism can kill the passion of the sales-force. They’ll become embarrassed to talk about how great they believe the product is to their peers. They’ll figure that maybe being cynical is the way to success in this organisation. And pretty soon they’ll become the cynical, smooth sales operators that customers hate.
Onward!
Ian
Topics: Communication, Sales Philosophy & Psychology, Selling Skills |
January 5th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
[...] I posted in In Praise of Passion, everyone’s BS detector is set to max nowadays - and a mechanistic, pre-programmed, [...]
March 7th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
[...] I posted in In Praise of Passion, everyone’s BS detector is set to max nowadays - and a mechanistic, pre-programmed, [...]
May 26th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
[...] a characteristic that’s been highlighted many times before, and something I talked about in In Praise of Passion. My experience has been that the fundamental characteristic all great salespeople share is an [...]
June 5th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
[...] My original “In Praise of Passion” article is here [...]
September 17th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
[...] a characteristic that’s been highlighted many times before, and something I talked about in In Praise of Passion. My experience has been that the fundamental characteristic all great salespeople share is an [...]