Chapter 1

1. Define “Selling”

“Never confuse activity with accomplishment.”

—John Wooden

What exactly IS “Selling”? Ask anyone to define selling, and for sure, you won’t have a problem getting a quick answer. The challenge is that many responses aren’t very constructive. I recently asked a seller this question, and their reply was immediate. “It’s getting someone to buy my stuff.” *Nailed it!*

Sarcasm aside, the disconnect is not in the “what do we want” but in the “what should we do.” And it is this “doing” part that’s critical to understand if you want to get good at it. One definition defines selling as “to influence someone on the merits of something.” But what you do to influence someone depends on the sales situation. So before we delve deeper into the “doing,” let’s begin with some differentiation.

Selling Is Simple until It’s Not

There are two different kinds of sales situations: Simple and Complex. Some refer to these as “transactional sales” (Simple) and “solution sales” (Complex). Simple Sales involve the selling most of us are familiar with when purchasing as a consumer. As such, we refer to this kind of selling as Business to Consumer, or B2C. A Simple Sale involves either one of the following situations:

• The connection between product features and buyer benefits is pretty obvious, so they don’t need much explaining. For example:
  • Product feature = lower cost than competitive products
  • Buyer’s benefit = save money (pretty obvious)

OR

• The buying decision is made by a small number of people (often just one) with very few steps involved.

We’re involved in Simple Sale decisions almost every day of our lives, like when we go to a store to buy electronics, appliances, clothes, food, and restaurant meals.

A Complex Sale is the opposite of a Simple Sale, where either one of the following situations is true:

• The connection between product features and buyer benefits is not obvious, even after much explaining (Product Complexity). For example:
  • Product feature = pay an ongoing monthly subscription versus a sizeable onetime payment
  • Buyer’s benefit = easier to manage monthly costs versus one big payment. But the monthly expenses add up to a more significant amount over time, while with the one-time expenditure, you’re done (hmmmm—less obvious)

OR

• The buying decision is made by more people (let’s say three or more), and many steps are involved (Buying Decision Complexity).

When you are selling a product or service to a company, Business to Business, or B2B, selling, you are almost always operating in a Complex Sale situation. This is detailed in the graphic below:

So why does this matter? Because the selling process and success factors are different for each.

For example, in a Simple Sale, the selling process is as follows:

1. Give information
2. Ask for the order or the logical next step

If you don’t get the order, you ask what additional information they need, then repeat the two steps above until you either get a NO or the order. Even if you get another NO, you can still go back and ask if they need more information before making a final decision. We see this kind of sales process play out every day:

• “We have a sale on fries today. Would you like me to include some with your order?”
• “We won’t be able to keep this item in stock for very long. Would you like to place an order for it today?”
• “I’m guessing you don’t want the risk of being without this policy. Should I get going on the paperwork for you?”

I call this way of selling “Clerking,” as it’s what most sellers do in a retail, or B2C, sales environment. And to be clear, Clerking can work as a viable selling process in certain situations, such as when:

• Your product or service is very simple
• Your product or service is obviously differentiated—e.g., a very low price
• You have a lot of sales opportunities, many more than you can handle
• There aren’t, or the prospect isn’t aware of, any real alternative options
• The buyer already knows what they want and is already sold

But if you are in B2B sales, you know this isn’t your reality. Yet, in my experience, many B2B sellers act as if they are dealing with a Simple Sale. They give information and then ask for the order. And in fact, my guess is that:

Clerking wins as many as 20 percent or more of B2B sales. The problem is that there is a high probability of losing the other 80 percent by selling this way.

Some time ago, I went on a customer call with a sales rep that was a whiz at the Clerking method. He would meet with a potential prospect and, after a bit of small talk, whip out his binder that contained a brochure for each of his products. Then, he would slowly start flipping the pages while telling the customer, “Stop me if you see something you like.” Hard to believe, I know. Predictably, he didn’t last long.

Let me share a different example where this kind of selling “appears” to work. I spent some time coaching a sales director whose company offered a pretty complex service. He had done well as a sales rep before being promoted, even though his approach was mainly Clerking—giving information and then asking for the order. The reason why it worked for him was that he was an expert in his field. He would provide his prospects with all kinds of guidance on pitfalls to avoid and how to do their jobs better. This expertise gave him a higher degree of credibility than his competitors’ reps. The approach often worked because his company’s services, which included him, were highly and obviously differentiated. But not all customers want the same things. Those who valued this expertise would prefer to buy from him. But others, who appreciated lower prices, national support, or other capabilities, wouldn’t care as much. Not only that, the day that one of his competitors hires a sales rep who’s equally credible, that differentiation evaporates. That’s why you can’t consistently win with this kind of selling strategy.

Here’s another observation: If you come across a seller’s resume that shows a new employer every six months to a year, even when it highlights over-plan achievement in many of them, there’s a good chance they were just Clerking. When the deals that others had mostly sold before the rep arrived get closed, it becomes tough to keep the good times rolling. So they either panic and leave or an astute sales manager figures out they’re not up to the job and sends them packing.

Because we’re so often exposed to Clerking as a consumer, we naturally—but mistakenly—assume it’s the way to sell as a B2B sales professional. Instead, to win more predictably and consistently in a Complex Sale, you need to sell differently. So:

If you are ever in doubt whether you are dealing with a Simple Sale or a Complex Sale, ALWAYS start by assuming it’s a Complex Sale.

Bottom line: you use a Simple Sale selling process for a Complex Sale at your peril!

Telling versus Selling

In order to sell or influence potential customers in a Complex Sale, you must first create awareness. An informal “law of awareness” was originally described by John C. Maxwell in his book The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth. The idea is this: if you want to get someone to change, you need to increase their awareness of the current state. And selling, at its core, is all about influencing someone to change—change their thinking or change their situation.

Real selling involves increasing a prospect’s awareness of their current state and thus the need to change, in effect, creating “lightbulb moments.”

You’re probably wondering: in what areas are we trying to increase awareness? There are many: awareness of a particular problem or opportunity, awareness of the importance of addressing a problem, awareness of how one product is superior to another, or awareness around the best approach toward making a buying decision.

There are two ways you can try to create awareness: the easy and less effective way or the harder but considerably more powerful way. The easy way is to simply “tell.” Here are some typical examples of what a seller might say:

• “It’s important for you to consider that a panel of industry experts selected our product as the most innovative offering.”
• “You’ll be interested to learn more about our services because I’ll bet your company is trying to save money this year.”
• “When you make your buying decision, be sure to select a vendor with stability.”

Telling is a salesperson’s “go-to” behavior because it’s easy to do, it’s fast, and we all know how to do it. We see it every day, and...