My job is to create tension in the room. I just conducted a Sales Enablement Workshop for a tech company with over a thousand salespeople, where I had 20 key players from marketing, product management, and sales in the same room. Their issues were very typical of what I see with all my clients:
-
The marketers are trying to get the sales team to move from selling product features to selling solutions that bundle multiple products and services.
-
The sales folks think that the marketers don't understand what the sales team really needs in the field and the tools they get from marketing aren't useful.
-
The product guys feel they really understand the value propositions of their products...the sales guys disagree.
The list goes on, but you get the idea. This group of incredibly talented people, who all have the same goal of helping all reps sell like their top reps, was missing something so important.
Scott Santucci from Forrester captures it brilliantly in his recent post on A Story of Empathy - The Lost Art of Selling? Scott says:
What truly separates top sales people is in fact that innate ability to connect the dots with a buyer...When I ask them how they sell, I get more or less the same answer; “well, I just sell a vision – you know what I am talking about.” I do, but it’s a hard thing to describe to the rest of the organization.
They are talking about empathy.
Scott shares some data from a recent survey of technology buyers, who were asked the question, “When you meet with a vendor sales person, in general how often are they prepared for the meeting in the following ways?" (% are for respondents who answered 'usually’)
Knowledgeable about their company and products 88%
Knowledgeable about my industry 55%
Can relate to my role and responsibility in the organization 34%
Knowledgeable about my specific business 29%
These reps clearly aren't connecting the dots. As Ardath Albee says in a post Is Sales Connecting the Dots with Buyers, that comments on Scott's data:
Salespeople don't need to know more about your products' feeds and speeds, they need to learn and assimilate information about their prospects. And they need to learn it well enough to have conversations with those prospects so they can earn the right to play a role in helping them craft the solutions to their most pressing business issues.
Ardath continues with a statement that echoes the first of my New Rules of Sales Enablement:
It should be becoming clear that what sales enablement should, um, enable is better and more valuable conversations between salespeople and buyers. Not just the end-game decision maker, but all the people involved on the buying committee.
Amen. But how do you help your reps show empathy with buyers situations? Here's one easy thing you can do. Create "Issue Sheets" for the top 4 or 5 issues of each of your primary buyer personas that your solution can address.
You know what the issues are, so scratch out as much as you know about the issue and its implications for that buyer on a piece of paper. Then make it fun. Invite a few reps (make sure there are some top reps in the bunch) in for lunch or out for a beer, and ask them this:
"When you're having a discussion about this issue with a prospect, what does the dialog sound like? What's the tone of their voice? How is it personally affecting them? How have they tried to address this issue before, and what were the results? What are the consequences of not solving it?"
Record it as a podcast, type it up in a doc, the format isn't important, just get this information into the hands of all your reps, help them internalize it, and listen in on some calls to see if their conversations improve.
I love it when I can apply what I learned in Kindergarten to the real world.
What do you think? Can your sales peole empathize with buyers pains? What are you doing to help them have these important conversations?
