Stop Selling - and Sell More

We talk to several hundred marketing managers and company presidents every year. The quality of their products and services are above average to extraordinary. Their markets are robust. Yet, year in and year out, many fail to meet quota. They are stumped. “What are we missing?” they ask. “Is it how we look, what we say, how we say it, where we come from? Are our sales people too old, too young, to ethnic, too female, too male? Are we intimidating, over-confident, too timid, too chatty or is it that we just don’t push hard enough?”

The answer is, all the above and none of the above. Treating everyone as a prospective client is a recipe for frustration and unrequited quotas. There is a remedy. That remedy is qualification.

Successful companies understand two things … themselves and the identity of their target market. They do not squander resources trying to appeal to everyone. They identify companies they want as clients then channel their marketing resources to acquire these specific companies. Most importantly … they never sell to these prospects.

Selling, like smoking, has fallen out of fashion in today’s cynical, time-starved business world. Selling is nonproductive. The level of sophistication among target audiences renders the act of selling as little more than an insult to a prospect’s intelligence.

Today’s businesspeople and consumers despise being sold to. The ‘salesman’ has become passé. Enter the ‘qualifier/researcher’. The Q/R knows her product inside out, is a student of psychology, a patient listener and a thoughtful responder. There are no mind-games. The Q/R is a physician, examining for evidence of pain. She understands that if her prospect feels no pain he is unlikely to make a change to his current business style. If pain is detected she assesses her patient’s condition to judge whether her ability to treat that condition is sufficient and appropriate. If her qualifications are not sufficient she does not persist or back away. Instead she refers the prospect to a specialist.

If however she has properly pre-qualified her prospect, detected pain, has the qualifications to treat that pain, a sale is imminent and the prospect is only too happy to oblige. A SALE is made, but no selling was necessary.