His eyes were narrow and bloodshot from staying out late and
partying too heavily the previous night. A two-day old stubble
framed his face. He was wearing a dark colored tee shirt, which
he hadn't tucked in, a pair of jeans, and scuffed loafers which
had probably never seen shoe polish. It was the second day of my
Sales Academy seminar, and this participant in the program was
complaining to the group that his customers were only interested
in low price.
I didn't say this, because I didn't want to embarrass him in
front of the group, but I thought it none the less: "Do you think
your appearance and demeanor have anything to do with your
customers' reaction? Do you think that you may give them the idea
that you are the lowest rung on the pricing scale? Is it possible
that you have inadvertently positioned yourself as the Wal-Mart
of the industry?"
I remember, as a child, having a salesperson call on my family.
He had an appointment to discuss a correspondence course for
one of us. He drove a big Lincoln, dressed richly, spoke
articulately, and carried himself with confidence. It wasn't a
coincidence that we bought his program without quibbling about
the price.
These two scenarios illustrate a powerful and frequently
overlooked best practice in the world of sales: Whether you
intend to or not, you always create a position in the minds of
your customers, and that position influences the customer's
attitudes toward you as well as the buying decisions that
follow.In other words, if you look like you're the low price,
your customers will expect you to be the low price.
It follows, then, that if we are going to be an effective,
professional salesperson, we ought to give thoughtful
consideration to how we position ourselves in the minds of our
customers.
Let's begin by understanding the idea of positioning a little
deeper. Positioning has long been a term bandied about by
advertising mavens and marketing gurus. They define it as the
place that your brand or product has carved out in the mind of
the customer. It's the pictures that enter the customers' mind
when they think of your product, the feelings that your product
evokes, the attitudes they associate with you, and the thoughts
that they have of you.
Chances are, for example, that the words "Volkswagen Beetle"
evoke a set of responses from you that are different than
"Chevrolet Corvette." You expect a certain degree of quality,
price and service when you enter a Wal-Mart that is not the same
as your expectations upon stepping inside a Saks Fifth Avenue
store.
Billions of dollars are spent every year on carefully crafted
impressions by businesses anxious to carve out a valuable
position in the minds of their customers.
Alas, if only the same thing could be said of many salespeople.
Just like the carefully designed impressions by advertising
mediums inexorably chisel a spot into our psyches, so do the
repeated visits by a salesperson embed a set of expectations,
pictures and emotions into the minds of our customers. The
position you, as a salesperson, occupy is a complex intertwining
of the perception of your company, your solutions, and yourself.
The most effective salespeople and sales organizations understand
that, and consciously work to create a positive position in the
minds of their customers.
Creating Your Position
Let's begin at the end. A good starting point is to think deeply
and with some detail about what sort of position you want to
create. What, exactly, do you want your customers to think of
you? Let me suggest two possibilities: the minimum acceptable
position, and the ideal position.
At a minimum, I believe your customer should view you as a
competent, trustworthy person who brings value to the customer.
They believe that you generally know your products and their
strengths and weaknesses, that you generally know the customer's
issues, and that you can be reliably counted on to do what you
say you will do. That's the least acceptable position to which
you should work towards. If your customers don't think of you at
least in this way, you probably should not be in sales.
At the other end of the spectrum is the ideal position. This
builds on the minimum, but adds a specific understanding on the
part of the customer of your unique combination of strengths and
attributes. It evolves as you have history with the customer
until you occupy a position that is totally and uniquely yours
and that carries with it the expectation that your strengths in
some specific and unique way add value to the time the customer
spends with you. The ultimate test of the power of your position
is the customer's willingness to see you and the resulting
preference for doing business with you.
Here's an illustration. If you were shopping for an automobile, a
low-mileage late model Taurus would probably provide you with
competent, reliable transportation. So, when you think of that
specific automobile, it would evoke a set of ideas in your mind
all revolving around competent and reliable transportation. Now,
think of a brand new Lamborghini and you would understand it to
be transportation, but with a unique flair - something above and
beyond just reliable transportation. That flair would be a result
of the unique strengths of that particular automobile conveyed in
a graphic way to your mind.
So it is with salespeople. You want to position yourself in your
customer's mind the equivalent of the Taurus. But if you really
want to carve out a unique, memorable position in your customer's
mind, you'd want them to think of you as a Lamborghini.
The question then is, how do you want your customers to think of
you? Once you articulate a specific picture, you can then start
to build that position. Here are four essential steps to help you
convey a positive position to your customers.
1. Soberly assess yourself.
What sort of position are you currently occupying in the
customer's mind? Be as objective as possible as you think through
each of the issues listed below, and compare yourself to your
competitors. How do you stand on...
* your appearance
* your product knowledge
* your understanding of company policies and procedures
* your competence with basic sales skills
* your understanding of the customer
* your bearing and demeanor.
If you find that your rank below your competitors on any of these
issues, then you need to spiff them up so that you are thought
of, at least, as a Taurus. Then, you can begin to move toward the
Lamborghini position.
2. Start on the inside.
In my book, 10 Secrets of Time Management for Salespeople, I
propose that you "get grounded." That advice is based on the
observation that it is difficult to sustain a false position. It
is all a whole lot easier if you portray yourself to be who you
are. Integrity, meaning consistency between who you are and who
you present yourself to be, is a foundation to a positive
position.
In order to do that, you must clearly understand who you are.
That means that you crystallize, in a written document, these
three issues:
* Your purpose. This really speaks to your spiritual orientation.
Why are you here? What is your purpose in life and in this job?
Why are you doing this anyway?
* Your vision. What would you like to become? What do you see as
possible and ideal in your job, your career, and in your life?
* Your values. What are the highest priority items in your life
and in your job? What are the people, ideas, behaviors and
qualities of character that are most important to you?
Once you have thought deeply about these internal issues, you'll
find it much easier to live them. The process of articulating
them and putting them on paper keeps you focused and attentive to
the deeper issues.
3. Do a sober assessment of your strengths.
If you are going to position yourself in the eyes of the customer
as having some combination of uniqueness, you first have to
identify what those unique strengths are. What are your personal
unique attributes, experiences, and passions as it relates this
job? Do you have some special experience? Do you have some unique
capabilities? Do you have some unique relationships? Do you have
some unusual characteristics? Identify those strengths on a piece
of paper, and then add a line or two on how each of those can
bring value to the customer.
At this point, you will have done the necessary homework to make
the job of building a unique position much easier. You now know
who you are and what strengths you can bring to your customers.
Now comes the fun.
4. Continually seek opportunities to convey your brand.
Act in a way that is consistent with your statements of
strengths. For example, if you say that you are good with high
tech, don't take notes on a scratch pad. Put them into a PDA. If
you say you are personally attractive, don't forget to shave
before you make a sales call. Be consistent - act like the person
you claim to be.
Find ways to utilize your strengths and emphasize your
uniqueness. In one of my sales positions, for example,
recognizing that I had some unique talents in speaking to groups,
I consistently found ways to organize seminars and workshops for
my customers in which I presented to the group. I could have made
individual sales calls to six customers, but I found that when I
brought all six together in a group, I was more effective. It was
just me utilizing my strengths.
Be creative. One of my strengths happened to be my wife, who is a
gourmet cook, and extremely good with anything that even looks
like food. We collaborated, and as Christmas gifts for my
customers, she would make dozens of varieties of homemade cookies
and candies, and I'd pack them uniquely for each customer. Within
a year or two, everyone looked forward to my arriving with our
annual Christmas present.
Develop a reputation by intention. Decide what you want to be
known for, and then work to consistently make that happen. One
salesperson makes sure, for example, that he doesn't call on a
customer unless he has something to share with that customer
which he believes that customer will find valuable. As a result,
he has no problem getting time with his customers. He's developed
the reputation of always bringing something of value.
If you want to be known as the most responsive salesperson, set
up a system that allows you to respond to every phone call within
an hour or two. If you want to be known as the fountain of
product knowledge, make sure that you study every price list and
piece of literature on every product you sell. If you want to be
known as the specialist in some application, make sure that you
know it inside and out.
Consider everything that you do. Question every single aspect of
your interaction with the customer, and gradually shape every
thing to match the position you want to gain. If you want your
customer to think of you as confident and competent, don't drive
a dirty 10 year old car. If you want your customer to think of
you as worth an extra couple percentage points in price, then
don't come in wearing wrinkled Dockers and a dirty tee shirt. If
you want to be known as intelligent and articulate, don't use
slang.
Your position in the minds of the customer is a powerful and
subtle component of an effective salesperson's approach.
Consistently working at building a positive position will pay
dividends for years.
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