Not to get too political, but can you really help it at the height of “Convention” season?  Four days every four years where one can gorge on pre-processed politics; the opportunity for cable news channels to elevate the profoundly mundane to almost insignificant, a dose of equal time for all with or without a viewpoint.

Looking at this year’s opening night of the Demographic, oops sorry, Democratic convention, we see that there are some great lessons for sales professionals.

At the end of the first night James Carville, the Ragin’ Cajun — the lead campaign strategist for President Bill Clinton, was leading the charge that the Dems had wasted an opportunity, and in fact the whole night by having a soft message all night and not fully going all out with a frontal attack on the Republicans. He took it even further by saying this was the 5th straight night where the Dems failed to deliver the message, the first four being the 2004 convention, where the Dems failed to deliver a clear compelling message, a message that would win over the undecided and win the election. As a result they now had only three nights left to “close the deal.”

This type of situation plays out in sales on a regular basis, sales reps going in to see prospects/clients and failing to deliver the message, seize the moment, thus squandering the opportunity.  They go in asking a lot of unfocused and unnecessary questions that do not lead anywhere, certainly not to a clear next step to move them closer to closing the deal.

Often reps are focused on the relationship, often I hear things like “well I don’t want to come across too salesy” (where is the Listerine when you need it?)  They don’t want to appear too eager.  The reality however is that this “I am your friend” approach is naive and not only lengthens the sales cycle, but one can argue jeopardizes the sale. 

The job of a sales rep is to drive revenue by bringing in sales, and deliver them in an efficient fashion.  For a great read on this I would recommend The Hard Truth About Soft-Selling: Restoring Pride & Purpose to the Sales Profession by George W. Dudley and John F. Tanner.  I think they are right on target when they state that in sales today we have a generation of “professional visitors”. 

If the Dems can in fact “close the deal” in the remaining three nights, it suggests they could have closed it a day earlier and then drove things home on the fourth.  In sales if we waste a meeting and opportunities based on misplaced preconceptions, we just end up extending the time to revenue, adding costs and reducing margins.  We see this in sales every day, long pointless meetings, sales closing in four calls when it could have been done in three.  If that is so, they could have up-sold in the fourth meeting, or better yet acquired four deals in the time they now close three deals.

So the lesson is, understand your message = value, and then communicate it clearly and more importantly, and in many ways what sales people can do more effectively, delivering the message -> “buy from me!”, convincingly.

Sell well,
Tibor Shanto, The Pipeline