Winning People Over

"Winning People Over is a horrible sales strategy," writes sales trainer Bill Caskey. And I agree.

"After 22 years in the sales training business, I conclude that strategy is hopeless," he continues.

Why?

Are we not frequently taught to:

* win them over with our personality
* develop rapport to get them to like us
* treat the prospect like a king or queen, bending over backwards in the hope that they'll appreciate us enough to buy?

The Problems With Winning People Over

"If I can just get in front of a prospect, I'll get them to like me." I don't know how many times I've heard this from business owners. Sure. Do you have any stats to back that assertion up?

Let's look at what the strategy of winning people over does to you and your sales process.

1. You are no longer looking for the "right fit"; you're trying to win them over.

2. You aren't speaking from a position of strength or as an equal; you're trying to win them over.

3. You aren't showing that your solution is valuable; you're trying to win them over.

There's more, but we'll stop here for now. Let's review what happens when we're winning people over instead of qualifying and then selling.

What Winning People Over Does to Your Sales Process

1. Your sales process is out of control. YOU are no longer the one in charge of the choice of whether to work with this prospect or not; they are.

2. Your pandering approach is a repellant turn-off to people with real power, ie. decision makers, business owners. They don't want to deal with weaklings--unless they have some sort of dominance issue...and in that case do you want them as a client?

3. Your solution has now become a commodity, because the differentiating factor you've tried to push into the situation is your personality.

Does this sound like the selling situation you want to be in?

Stop trying to win people over.

>> Jason Kanigan is a sales force developer. Did you find this info helpful? Please Like, Share or Comment to let us know! Also, you can Follow us with the big red button in the bottom right <<