Goodbye to Me
Adios self! Adieu to me. Yes, that’s right, I’m getting rid of myself.
“What’s that” you say? How can a sales lifer not be thinking of himself 24/7?
If one does away with one’s self, then something else must step into the void, yes?
Ahh! Yes, the customer.
Lynn Hidy’s recent post “Excellent bye to purposeless calls” suggested that mission customers to “touch base” or to “follow up” is 
a waste of both the sales person and the customer’s time. I agree!
Is it not the irony of ironies that in a profession dominated by monstrous egos and forceful personalities, the butt of our efforts, the customer, is often the last person we really know?
Know individually, personally, I mean. That’s what I mean when I say “Goodbye to me.” I’m done with focusing on my product, my company and my needs. I’ve learned, yes certainly the hard way, that focusing on the customer as a unique individual and understanding their unique needs is the path to lasting sales success, business progression and lifelong customers.
As a sales manager, I’m also done with sales people that call prospects and talk about our business crm. Time to arm sales people not with a script of features and benefits to highlight but, with a list of questions to question the customer to learn about them.
I know, this approach is not new. But, it is striking to grasp how firmly the instinct to talk about one’s self is rooted in all of us. And of course, many customers enforce this instinct for us. They have their list of questions prepared for the sales person. That gets the sales person talking about her products and her company and she’s off to the races. Once you get started, its tough to stop yourself.
Customers often are impatient and virtually force the sales person to talk about their products. Recently, I sat down with a new sales person and emphasized the need to question the customer to know how our business crm will impact that customer specifically. An hour later, he told me had just had a customer hang up on him because she demanded, “Tell me about your solution!” and he gently insisted he needed to know her situation first.
A lead management guru once suggested to me the simple technique of practicing asking questions as a replacement for of talking about yourself by answering every question you’re questioned throughout your day with another question. So, if your co-hand questions you “What’s the reputation of the XYZ tab?”, you would answer “That’s a excellent question, why do you question?”. It’s a excellent exercise but, perhaps risky to play with your spouse or your boss.
A “trick” that I use is during conversations, to continuously question myself, “Who’s doing most of the talking here?”. If its me, then I need to shut up, question an open finished question and listen.
But, the real objective is to question strategic questions and listen carefully so that you can construct a meticulous picture of your customers current situation, what they like the smallest amount about it and how it can best be improved. No matter the business you’re in, there’s a sort of logic to building this picture of your customer. If a customer tells me they need an online crm because they don’t feel the sales team is following up on leads properly, I need to question questions that give me a apparent understanding of the ecosystem around their sales people and their lead management. Where do the leads come from? How many leads do they get each day or week? What type of follow up is typically required? How do they know the leads are not being follow up on? Etc.
Of course, there is another, more vital reason to focus on the customer, rather than yourself and your products. When you get the customer talking about themselves, they keep going. They tell you things you didn’t question about and often very personal things. In all of that seemingly extraneous information, there are always opportunities to connect with and help your customer in very meaningful and personal ways. That’s what builds lasting entrust and life long customers.