One of my favorite quotes in the self-development field is, “Don’t wish life was easier, wish you were better”, by Jim Rohn. What I take from a quote like this is to work harder on yourself in order to make life easier. In other words, invest in yourself, work on your skills, make yourself more valuable to the marketplace. In our training sessions, beyond technique, strategy and tactics we work continuously on building good habits. One such habit we discuss is the ability to make better decisions. Why? Studies show that there is a direct correlation between how we go about making decisions and our ability to “close” more sales. Said another way, if you buy slow, you sell slow. If you buy cheap, you sell cheap.
Let’s pretend for a moment that you are looking to purchase a new flat screen television. You start by researching on-line some of the available models, research the technology and even check consumer reports. Perhaps your next step is to go out to two or three stores and shop prices. Others may do the same behavior but go on-line instead of going out to stores. Now, let’s also pretend that from the time you’ve decided to purchase the tv until you actually make the purchase and bring it home is a few days or weeks. Lastly, while shopping you have talked the salesperson down a few dollars and are excited that you saved $50. Let’s discuss how this affects your ability to sell.
Would it make sense to you that because you did the research and didn't stop until you fully understood all of the options that you may allow a prospect to do the same to you? Why wouldn't that be true? If that is how you buy, by doing a lot of research and delaying making the decision until you have all of the information, you will be highly likely to allow prospects to do that to you as well.
Looking at going to several stores or on-line sites can hurt you as well. If you want to “shop around” you just may be susceptible to those that want to shop you. And, let’s face it, time kills deals. You show me someone that takes a long time to make decisions in their personal life, and I’ll show you someone that isn’t a strong “closer”. After all, if it takes you a long time to make decisions, you will have empathy for those that want to do that with you. You will let them get away with excuses for not purchasing today and allow them to walk away without making a decision.
By the way, the same is true of always looking for a deal, saving a few pennies and shopping on price. Do you think you might be more susceptible to giving away margin and selling at lower prices? Yup. The correlation is there as well. If you buy on the cheap, you will have a tendency of selling on the cheap as well. For the same reasons, what makes sense to you on the buying side will make sense to you on the selling side. You might even think to yourself, “It makes sense to ask me for a discount. I’d do the same”. Or, you might think, “I’m not sure I would pay what I’m quoting either. That’s a lot of money”.
Now, what I’m not saying is that saving money isn’t a good idea. I’m also not saying that knowing what you’re buying isn’t important. I’m not making a judgement on good business sense with money. But, understand the correlation. Make educated purchases with the information that you have, purchase from a store that you trust and pull the trigger. After all, what’s the worst thing that could typically happen? Learn to make faster decisions. Learn to not ask for discounts with things that will only save you a few dollars. Your psyche and your wallet will thank you later.
In our training we have a group of people that were extremely indecisive, and we taught them to correct it. As example, they were instructed that when they are at a restaurant, they have 10 seconds to pick their meal. They close the menu, order their meal and never look back. Another group is not looking at all options when they are grocery shopping. If one spaghetti sauce is a dollar more, oh well. You can teach yourself to be more decisive with small, less important decisions until you become stronger at the task. Eventually, you will make decisions more quickly and never look back. As that occurs, you will notice that when you are selling and it is time to “close” you have a heightened state of awareness over the prospect’s indecisiveness. You will notice when they are making excuses and hear their delays differently. You will react and respond differently. You will now see their delay as an excuse or procrastination and go from saying things like, “Sure. We can follow up next week. When should I call you?” to, “I’m confused. What do you need to think over?” Why? Because your new way of thinking puts your mind in a new place. A place of less patience. A place of hearing most delays as excuses. A place where you can ask them questions to help them make a decision not tomorrow, but today.
On occasion, we will have an individual or a team take a sales assessment. One of the assessment objectives is to better determine how they make decisions. One assessment group, Objective Management Group believes so strongly in decisiveness that they have a name for it while assessing candidates. They call it, “non-supportive buy cycle”, when it shows up as a weakness. If you look on-line, they have literally evaluated over a million salespeople. If they believe that it has been proven to be a factor, as we suggest, I believe them! Their data is vast and definitive. The correlation exists and we see it show up with even experienced salespeople on a regular basis.
The good news? This particular weakness can be overcome in a fairly short period of time. Simply by reading this article and understanding how it might show up in your sales calls will improve it. Want to close more sales, in a shorter period of time? Be more decisive. The bad news? There are about 50 other ways we get in our own way…stay tuned.