Kevin Davis
As the name implies, sales training is, and always has been, focused on teaching selling behaviors. Buying behavior, however, has been almost completely ignored. If you think about it, how can we learn to sell if we don't learn about how people buy?
Changes in jobs, businesses, products, competitors, and technology have profoundly affected how people buy. Faced with increased pressure to make prudent and better informed purchases, today's customers do not want to be sold --- they want salespeople to help them buy. As a result, buyers are now using an eight-step buying process to help them gather information and take the time they need to make the right choices. Sale techniques inherent in the typical four step sales approach are actually pushing customers away.
In response to these changes, many progressive companies have begun using what is known as "consultative selling" and "relationship selling." While these approaches are less adversarial than those traditionally employed, their underlying weakness remain one of motive: the objective of these approaches is still to get the customer to follow our sales track.
The key to successful selling in spite of these changes is to get into your customer's head. Sales training must explore how customers' thought and feelings change depending on where they are in their buying process, and must teach salespeople how to match they way they sell to how their customers buy.
How Customers Buy
Sales training needs to address the two primary ways in which people buy: buy-knowing and buy-learning. Buy-knowing occurs when buyers feel a need to buy, but believe they already know what they need to know ---a repeat purchase for example.
Buy-learning is more complex because it involves acquiring knowledge and weighing alternatives to arrive at the optimum choice. It is certainly the buying process of the 90's. Advances in technology, continued change, and a multitude of choices means there is more risk and uncertainty for buyers and, hence, a greater need to learn about the available options.
Independent research projects conducted by Columbia University School of Business and Huthwaite Research confirm the existence of the buy-learning process. Both studies concluded that when buyers feel the need to buy, but sense the risk of making a mistake, they will seek to resolve their uncertainty with a deliberate, rational buying process.
Buy-learning unfolds in a series of eight predictable steps. The effective salesperson understands how to shepherd buyers through each step of the buying process to encourage them to make the purchase. The eight steps are: Change, Discontent, Research, Comparison, Fear, Commitment, Expectations, and Satisfaction. Let's follow an example through each step to see precisely how it works.
Step 1: Change occurred for Kim when she became pregnant. That triggered...
Step 2: Discontent because her little Fiat sports car was not satisfactory for family transportation.
Step 3: In Kim's Research, she identified the capabilities necessary in a solution --- such as 4 doors, air bags, and a price range.
Step 4: Kim shopped and Compared the vehicles that met her criteria and identified a preference --- the Dodge Caravan.
At this point, the Dodge salesperson thought he had a sure-thing sale, but Kim suddenly pulled back. She went home and did not return the salesman's phone calls.
Step 5: Kim had arrived at Fear. Every salesperson can relate to the unfortunate scenario of a major prospect who suddenly "goes silent" at the 11th hour.
Step 6: Finally, Kim overcame her reservations and arrived at Commitment. She negotiated and signed the contract.
Step 7: Expectations --- buyers have great expectations, but they soon clash with the difficulty and frustration of learning something new.
Step 8: Satisfaction
Selling Too Fast
Most salespeople are being taught to sell too fast. Dartnell Research, a leading business publisher, found that 8 out of 10 salespeople get to the end of their sales pitch before 90% of customers are ready to buy. The irony is that if salespeople would sell slower, customers would actually buy faster. Customer needs would be better defined and would appear more urgent. Salespeople's solutions would also be better designed, making the best choice easier for customers to identify.
To help salespeople slow things down, training should explore the eight roles of selling that match buying behavior. Moving slowly through each of these roles will help salespeople provide the guidance and support customers need.
The Student studies the Change affecting customers and opens closed doors.
The Doctor diagnoses the customer's Discontent and uncovers big needs.
The Architect designs unique solutions that simplify the customer's Research and lock out the competition.
The Coach Compares the offering to the competition and implements a game plan to win.
The Therapist draws out the customer's last-minute Fears and helps to resolve them.
The Negotiator discusses to reach mutual Commitment.
The Teacher identifies the customer's Expectations, teaches the customer how to achieve maximum value, and tests for results.
The Farmer cultivates Satisfaction and grows the account.
To increase sales, training must teach about how people buy. Salespeople must learn to anticipate how customers' thoughts and feelings change depending on where they are in their buying process, and must match their sales strategies and techniques accordingly. When you do this you will be selling step-by-step along the customers' buying path, which places you one GIANT step ahead of your competition.
Kevin Davis is president of The Kevin Davis Group and author of "Getting Into Your Customer's Head: 8 Secret Roles of Selling Your Competitors Don't Know," (Times Business, May, 1996). He can be reached directly at (510) 831-0922. The book can be ordered by calling 800-CEO-READ.
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