TouchPoint Selling

Apr 21 2009 3:48PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |
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By Rick Heaston

As I travel around North America, I’m more and more convinced that most sales people have flipped the switch and continue to fly on autopilot. What do I mean by that? I mean that they’re going through the motions and selling like they’ve always sold.

How do I know? That’s an easy one for me to answer; they told me so. They didn’t say it in so many words, but they “spoke volumes” in their answers to my questions … questions about selling in today’s marketplace.

I asked sales people a couple of different questions. First, if they were doing anything different today than they were a few years ago. And second, I asked them how it was working. Their answers were consistent.

Sales associates told me they were using the same process, but working harder at it. And in answer to my second question, they said that even though they were working harder, their results hadn’t really changed. Humm?

I know that you’ve always been told to “step it up”, and if you work hard you’ll succeed. Times have changed. Today, we’re operating in a market like no other. It’s like the old saying, “If you always do what you’ve always done … well, you know the rest.”

I believe there’s a fundamental reason that sales associates are flying on autopilot. It’s hard to change and much easier to cling to old beliefs.

What happens is that new advice; new skills and new ways of thinking, feeling and believing are filtered through old beliefs. If something sounds “foreign” to you, you revert back to what is most familiar.

Staying in your comfort zone, especially when you know its not working like it used to, means you are cheating yourself in terms of advanced performance. There’s always the other answer, “It’s the market”, but that isn’t it either. It’s you!

If you want to change, if you want to get better there’s a simple answer. Explore. And exploring means looking for the people that are successful and imitating what they do. After all, there are many people in the industry that are out performing their competition five to one (and they have a higher price). Here’s my tip.

Read SPIN Selling, Socratic Selling and Selling the Invisible and you’ll be on your way. At least you’ll understand that homebuilding and the way we sell is quite a few years behind the times. As always the choice is yours.