Practical Eloquence Blog |

Lean Communication for Sales: Talk Less, Sell More?

By Jack Malcolm / 3.2.2016 / 3 Comments

I’ve written almost 40 articles about lean communication, and hundreds of articles about sales, but this is the first time I’ve written about lean communication as it applies to sales. Is it possible that talking less can help you sell more?

To better answer that question, let’s first look at what buyers need, and then consider how well salespeople are meeting that need.

The principal purpose of a buying process is to produce an effective decision at the lowest possible cost, and that requires a lot of information, some of which is readily available on online and some which can only come from talking to a sales rep. But buyers would prefer not to talk to salespeople if they can help it. By now it’s a well-known fact that buyers are up to 60% of the way through their decision process before they contact a salesperson, according to the CEB.

Why do buyers avoid talking to salespeople as long as they can? According to The Challenger Sale, “…the celebrated ‘solution sales rep’ can be more of an annoyance than an asset.” In lean terms, that statement simply says that salespeople are seen as providing more waste than value.

The bigger and more complex the decision, the more information needed, and the more opportunity for waste in the process of acquiring it. At every step in the buying process, there is a tremendous amount of waste, including:

Unclear understanding of their own needs
Time and effort to uncover the information they need for a decision
Differing internal perceptions of needs and priorities
Effort to clarify ambiguity—much of it deliberate
Incorrect information
Delays in obtaining answers to their questions
Information that is not tailored to their unique situation
Sitting through 43-slide presentations to get the answer to one or two crucial questions
Risk of making the wrong decision

And it’s not just buyers. Deep in their hearts, even though they would never say it, CEOs wish they could get rid of their sales forces. They cost a lot of money and they can be difficult to manage. Yet salespeople are not going away, despite all the predictions that the easy availability of information on the internet would make the sales profession wither away. That’s because they still serve a critical function: they provide information to help buyers make decisions—decisions that improve the buyers’ business and personal outcomes.

Salespeople are still needed because they add value, by communicating useful information that improves business and personal outcomes, while preserving the relationship. The first is essential, the second highly desirable. In the long run, it’s the product that delivers value to the customer, but it can’t do that until it’s chosen and implemented. And for that, it needs a salesperson.

But salespeople still have to do better. If they want to keep adding value in the final 40%, or—even better—get brought in sooner, lean communication can be a powerful asset. Look at it this way, if you are a buyer who has to undertake the time, effort and risk to make an important decision, how would you respond to a salesperson who:

Has a sincere desire to create value
Thinks and communicates from your side of the desk
Is prepared to answer your most pressing questions, and does so candidly and completely
Is transparent about their intentions
Gives you only what you need when you need it to make the best decision
Keeps things simple
Does not waste your time
Listens and actually responds to your concerns
Lowers your cost and risk of making the best decision

I truly believe that lean communication and sales are a perfect match, and in the next five blog posts, I will show how each of the five principles of Lean Communication can significantly boost your results and your relationships: Value, Organization, Waste, Making Work Visible, and Pull.

Who knows, maybe you will be seen as more of an asset than an annoyance!

Persuasive communication

You Probably Should Not Read This

By Jack Malcolm / 2.24.2016 / 3 Comments

I can think of several good reasons you should not read this post. Of all my ideas for helping you be more persuasive, this may be the craziest one yet. Plus, it takes a lot of skill and confidence to even try to pull it off, and if you screw it up, it will definitely backfire on you.

I’ve actually thought this for a long time, because I’ve seen how it works in my own sales efforts, but I’ve held off on writing a post about this because of the very real concerns I listed above. But Adam Grant wrote about it in his book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, and his evidence for the effectiveness of the tactic is what gives me the confidence to finally roll it out to the world.

I call it unselling, and Grant calls it the Sarick Effect.[1] It’s an approach that involves telling people right up front all the reasons they should not accept your idea—getting all the negatives out on the table right away. When it’s done right, it can be an extremely powerful way to a) get agreement and b) sustain that agreement. In his book, Grant relates the story of Rufus Griscom of Babble, who began his 2009 pitch to potential investors with a slide telling them five reasons not to invest. He walked away with $3.3 million. Two years later, he pitched Disney and told them why buying his company was a bad idea. They bought it for $40 million.

I’ve had the same experience myself many times in my selling career. I’ve used unselling in several different ways, one of which I will share here. When a company approaches me about sales training, I sometimes push back on the premise that sales training is truly what they need. I question whether they might not need to look at their compensation structure or their sales strategies or even hiring practices before investing in training their sales force. Invariably, they start telling me all the reasons they’re convinced that sales training is exactly what they need.

Why does it work? Here are seven reasons. The first four are Grant’s reasons. While I agree with his reasons, I’ve added three more reasons of my own.

Leading off with your negatives disarms the audience, which naturally has its defensive shields up expecting to be sold. If people are initially opposed to your idea, your first task is to get them to at least listen.
It makes you look smart. Research by Theresa Amabile demonstrated that negative reviewers are seen as more intelligent than positive reviewers, for example.
It makes you trustworthy. Not only does it make you seem more honest, it actually does your listeners a favor. Griscom says, “The job of the investor is to figure out what’s wrong with the company. By telling them what’s wrong with the business model, I’m doing some of the work for them.”
By doing the work for them, it makes it harder for them to think of additional weaknesses, which makes it intuitively more reasonable that there are no other weaknesses. It’s what Daniel Kahneman calls WYSIATI: “What you see is all there is.”
It accords with the preferences of an educated and intelligent audience, who prefer two-sided arguments. If you notice, almost all of the opinion pieces in The Economist are written this way. They first cite the reasons against their position before making what they consider to be the stronger case. (You’ll notice that’s not the approach politicians take during debates—which speaks loud and clear what they think about the intelligence of the average voter.)
It harnesses the power of reactance. When people feel you are trying to impose your reasoning on them, it’s an attack against their freedom of choice, and they respond just like a two-year-old. So, they will start coming up with reasons to refute your reasoning, and that’s a good thing.
It takes away ownership of the negative reasons. If you’re listening to a pitch and you think of a good reason not to buy, that reason is your own because you thought of it, and you are much more likely to defend it against all argument. If someone else thinks of it, you may be less likely to cling to it.

So, there are very good reasons to unsell. But the reasons against it that I cited in the opening paragraph are also true, so if you decide to try it, there are some important points to keep in mind. First, the reasons you give against your idea have to be reasonable. If they’re just transparently strawman arguments, a smart audience will see right through them and the tactic will backfire. Second, they should be reasons the audience would reasonably have thought of on their own; no need to give them free ammunition. Finally, of course, be absolutely certain your positives outweigh your negatives.

Does unselling work? You’ve made it this far, so what do you think?

[1] You will have to read his book to find out why.

Presentations

Envision Success–But Whose?

By Jack Malcolm / 2.22.2016 / No Comment

When I worked my way up the ranks of tae kwon do years ago, one of our tests at every stage was to break a board (or several), with various punches or kicks. We were taught to aim not at the board, but about an inch beyond it. Hitting that target meant that a broken board was a foregone conclusion. It’s the same way with persuasive communication: a small but critical shift of your target can make a world of difference.

One of the most common bits of advice for speakers who are about to make a big presentation is to envision success. Imagine what it would feel like at the end of a successful presentation: walking out of that room knowing that you accomplished what you wanted; you got the agreement you sought, the kudos that came with it, the respect of the listeners—maybe even the financial satisfaction of a big commission from the sale. Think about reporting back to your boss how well it went, and the words of gratitude and praise you would get in return.

It’s a great vision, isn’t it? “Envision success” is great advice because it shifts your focus your fear and onto your excitement, and that can carry over to your entire performance.

But what if there is an even better way to envision success, one that will give you an even more positive focus and increase your chances of achieving the success you seek? I believe there is. Instead of envisioning your own success, envision success for your listeners. Imagine what they will feel like after they leave your presentation. Will they feel excited to tell others about it, because they know they’re grasping an opportunity to improve their situation? Will they feel relieved, knowing they have solved a problem that has bothered them for a long time? Will they feel confident, knowing that they have strengthened their defenses against possible risks?

Envisioning success for your listeners will help you in three ways. It will force you into outside-in thinking, because the only way to envision their success in credible and concrete detail is to truly understand what your listeners will care about and what they are most likely to respond to. If you have trouble doing it, you know you have more work to do. Second, it will take your focus off yourself, off that little bundle of nerves and voice of doubt that nags at the back of your mind; when you’re truly focused on others it’s hard to be worried about your own concerns. Finally, your intentions will show through in your talk; if you’re excited for them, you will communicate that excitement.

You can have as many as you want if you wait

Success

Marshmallows, Mindset and Self-Control

By Jack Malcolm / 2.16.2016 / No Comment

I’ve just finished reading Walter Mischel’s book, The Marshmallow Test: Why Self-Control Is the Engine of Success. In the 1960s Mischel ran a series of experiments in which small children at Stanford’s Bing preschool were given a choice: there was a single marshmallow on a plate, and the researcher told each child that she had to leave the room for a little while; if the child wanted, they could eat the marshmallow at any time, but if they waited until the researcher returned, they could have two. The main purpose of the experiment was to measure differences in self-control, and to study what the successful kids did to keep themselves from gobbling the marshmallow immediately.

The experiment might never have become known outside the specialized world of psychology, except for one thing. The kids tested were classmates of Mischel’s daughters, and several years later he decided to see whether there was a correlation between self-control exhibited on the test and life results. He found a clear and strong correlation that was beyond what he expected; for example, those in the top third of self-control averaged 210 SAT points higher than those in the bottom third. These differences, and others, such as obesity rates and income, persisted over time as he continued to monitor results through the years.

By themselves, these results can be very disturbing. Does this mean that our success in life is so dependent on a single trait—self-control—that you’re born with and is easily measurable by the time you’re four years old? If you fail the marshmallow test at age four, are you doomed to a life of failure? Or is there something you can do about it?

Actually, there is a lot you can do about it, and low self-control does not have to be destiny.

Mischel’s key point is that self-control is not a fixed, unitary trait. It’s not fixed in the sense of being totally determined by our genes; it’s a product of our genes, our environment, and our learning. Most importantly, it’s a skill that can be learned, practiced, and strengthened. It’s also not unitary, which means that we don’t apply the same amount of self-control in every situation. We all have our own unique combination of hot and cool buttons. Bill Clinton is the poster child example for this. He obviously had enormous self-control that got him from a small town in Arkansas to the presidency, but not enough to prevent a sexual scandal once he got there.

The most surprising and potentially useful finding to me was about the relation between mindset and self-control. Researchers such as Roy Baumeister have told us that willpower and self-control are a finite resource, which means that exercising self-control in one task depletes your ability to exercise it as strongly in a subsequent task. This “strength model of self-control” has become an enormously influential and insidious idea. It’s insidious because it tells you that you can only do so much, and even that it’s OK to limit your aspirations for self-improvement. It tells you that it’s not your fault when you fail—it’s biology.

I’ve had my doubts about the strength theory for two reasons. Looking at the big picture, history contains so many examples of people who have accomplished great things without seeming to be affected by willpower limits, who have persevered in many situations despite hunger, fatigue and deep discouragement. Closer to home, I have been working for the past month on a deep work project, which has made me spend much longer blocks of time and attention working on tasks that require a lot of self-control. So far I’ve found that I can work much longer and get much more done than I previously thought possible, and the best part is that I now finish the day with more energy than before.

Yet despite those doubts about the theory, the idea that self-control is finite has lingered in the back of my mind and imposed limits on my work habits. For example, writing can take a lot of willpower, so after about a half hour of writing I start telling myself that it’s time to take a break; sometimes I give in and sometimes I make a conscious effort to try to power through my “limits”.

But Mischel tells us that those limits may be self-imposed. If we think our willpower is limited, we’ll be right. Fortunately, if we think it’s not limited, we’ll also be right. According to Mischel, our mindset about self-control also influences whether we suffer depletion. If we believe in the strength model, we do get depleted from difficult tasks; if we don’t believe in it, we can escape the effects and even gain more stamina and strength from tasks that require self-control. Even more promising, we can learn the new mindset and gain the same benefits.

Carol Dweck and fellow researchers ran studies that found that the amount of willpower fatigue that participants exhibited was affected by their prior beliefs about whether willpower was a limited resource. They also found that just teaching college students the new mindset carried over beyond the lab and led to less procrastination and reducing excess spending.

I learned first-hand about the power of mindset many years ago. When I was still in my 20s, I began having a lot of stomach issues, and went to several doctors to try to discover the cause. I remember one final test, after which the doctor told me they could find nothing physically wrong, so they assumed it was stress related. Literally from that moment on, my symptoms disappeared and have never returned. I figured since it was only in my mind, that I could change my mind.

I guess it shouldn’t be that surprising that our self-control can be affected by our mindset. Dweck has already shown us that our beliefs about whether intelligence is fixed or malleable can have a significant impact on what we attempt and achieve, and in effect can become self-fulfilling prophecies. I learned that even our mindset about stress can affect whether it helps or harms us.

Now it’s gratifying and enormously empowering to find that the same idea applies to self-control. If you know you can self-control your self-control, the sky is the limit!