And, yet, most of us have more experience with the former sales person than we do with the latter. Or, our perception of sales people in general is so poor that we assume everyone who is selling something to have no greater intentions than does a thief. For the sales person with integrity, who truly wants to create value for his clients, this stigma makes it very hard to know when it is acceptable to be pushy. Sometimes, clients need to be pushed into a decision or they will actually lose money. Yet, if a sales person pushes when the client is resistant, she will lose the business and the client will fail to capture any value that the sales person could have provided. So, the pressing question is this: when should we be pushy?
The easy answer is...when we've earned the right to be. As sales people, we are often unjustly impatient with our customers. We try to prescribe before diagnosing. We know our intentions are good but we are being helplessly naive if we think our prospects are making that assumption. To gain a prospects trust, we must earn it. We must demonstrate genuine concern for them and their problems. Our thinking and all behaviors associated with it should be, "Is there a way I can help this prospect?" rather than, "Is there a way I can collect a commission from this prospect?" We, all too often, search for the "buy button" before locating and pressing the "trust button." We can't build a contract until we've built rapport.
That is why, I think, the perception of B2B sales people is genuinely greater than that of B2C sales people. B2B sales people typically have a longer window to build trust. When a buying decision is made within an hour, trust is harder to establish than it is when a buying decision is made within a month. That's why we hate pushy car salesmen but don't mind so much when an established supplier pushes a deadline. So, what is the guy who sells couches to do? Can he ever be pushy? In general, I think the answer is, "Yes." The problem with most sales people, B2B or B2C, is that they pounce on prospects. The lady selling you a car may push for a credit application within the first 5 minutes of catching your name. For most prospects, this kind of artificial urgency is unforgivable.
A good rule of thumb in knowing when to be pushy is the 80/20 principle: spend the first 80% of your estimated time with the prospect establishing trust and the remaining 20% trying to influence a decision. If you have an hour with a prospect, be as accomodating as you would be for a dinner guest. Spend that time genuinely establishing a relationship, not even giving a thought to closing. Don't push until the last ten minutes. If you have a month, spend the first 24 days building rapport and don't push for a decision until the last week.
True, your estimation of the prospect's buying timeframe may be off. The prospect may leave the showroom in 50 minutes or may go with another supplier in 3 weeks. But you'll without a doubt be more likely to keep the prospect's attention when you are focusing on building trust. They may decide, at this time, not to business with you. So what? Isn't it better to lose a transaction than to lose a prosect? If you focus the majority of your time building trust, one of two things will happen: you will either 1) get a sale or 2) get an opportunity for your future pipeline.
Timing is everything. Don't be pushy until you've enabled your prospect to see your pushiness as genuine concern. Your intentions are irrelevant if you don't have your prospect's trust.
featured image courtesy of jeff_golden licensed by Creative Commons
I prefer another "P" word...Persistent!
ReplyDeleteBruce, thanks for the comment! Naturally, as a sales person, I prefer "persistent" as well! The challenge for me is that I don't think customers always see it that way. Though I often fail, I always try to see myself through the eyes of my prospects. Being persistent, I think, means being pushy in the right context!
ReplyDeleteUsing "Pushy" was the PERFECT choice for your article. There is such a delicate balance at play. I am often called "Pushy" and that is completely accurate. In person, you have a MUCH BETTER chance of getting away with it, because you can gauge the other's reaction and respond accordingly. In e-mails, tweets, and other written correspondence, you are quite "at risk."
ReplyDeleteIRL still trumps virtual life, IMHO. Want some more acronyms?
LOL (acronym intended)! You're so witty. Real life is always better for interaction, no doubt. The tone of body language and voice inflection is much more discernible than that of text!
ReplyDeleteSince we're analyzing words, I'll toss in my two cents, as my late mother used to say. I think choice of language is always important, and so I think we should kill "pushy" because of all the negative connotations it conjures up and because it's not a healthy choice of words for your subconscious mind. "Persistent" or "insistent," with the caveat that you're always keeping the prospect's welfare above your own, is a much better way to think of it--you're feeding your subconscious a positive instead of a negative. This may sound like nitpicking to some, but I don't think it is. The default setting for the subconscious is garbage in, which is why you must always stand guard over your subconscious, keep the garbage out, so there won't be any "garbage in, garbage out" to poison you. The premise of the article, though, Doug, is right on! It's like all your content: Topnotch!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, Bob! I, of course, agree with the power that words have on our thinking and "pushy" does not paint us in a positive light. But I do think that it's the word prospects would prefer to use when they feel "pressured." Certainly, I want to think highly of myself; but I am infinitely more concerned about whether or not the prospect thinks highly of me. I didn't take "pushy" from the sales person's vocabulary but rather from the prospects. I can easily replace "pushy" with "persistent." It's getting the prospect to do it that's the trick :-)
ReplyDelete