A friend in Repro wrote me recently asking for my opinion on a task he had been assigned by his boss. Essentially, he was tasked with creating a Powerpoint deck that he could show to potential customers to "educate" them about the company and what they could for the potential customer.
I had kind of a long-winded response, but liked how it came out so I will post it here. I have removed the names to protect the innocent, but it would help to understand that this guy's boss has retained a bit of an "old school" sales guy (OSSG) to revamp the sales process.
Here's the email:
"My opinion, and you can choose to share this with your boss or not, is that prescribed and staid Powerpoint presentations are useless, or at the very least, not as effective as we’d like them to be.
People do not agree to meet with salespeople, mostly because they do not want to get a long drawn-out presentation they can’t get out of. Also, people don’t want answers to questions they’re not asking.
I always like to think of what happens when you go to a doctor. The doctor does not come in and talk to you about all the things he’s capable of fixing/curing, or about all the people he has successfully cured in the past. He comes in and says, “So…what’s wrong?”. You then proceed to tell him your pains, for which he prescribes the EXACT thing that you need. You then walk away a happy customer.
Now, you may say, “but a doctor’s capabilities and history of happy patients is important” to which I would respond that yes, it is, but that information is best left for the doctor’s website or some other promotional material (marketing) which draws you in to call the doctor for an appointment. When meeting with a patient/customer, you should really only be talking about what ails them. I think everything else is hot air.
What I always tried to do at while in Sales was to go into meetings and always first ask the question, “So…what’s wrong?” and then tailor my approach based on their answers. A pre-prepared Powerpoint deck would have been antithetical to my sales strategy and I think to good sales in general. Plus, it would have killed my chances of showing them I was different and worthy of their business and trust.
Privately, regarding the OSSG, I would caution your boss that the OSGG is from an older school of sales. It is just not a Xerox & IBM sales world anymore. 30 years ago, before the internet, clients didn’t know anything about your products or services (if they weren’t already using you) and couldn’t independently verify facts or lies about your competition that you told your client. Customers are much more savvy these days. There is simply so much more information available to everyone via the web that they might know more about your company that a new rep will. I think OSSG's intentions are good, and I’m always for education of clients, but I think this is going about it the wrong way.
On top of all of that, people are so used to instant gratification, that I think they want to get right to the point. It’s probably a little sad that the theatrics of drawing out the sales story may be gone, but that’s the way it is. There’s no replacement for a well-performing salesperson, but I think it’s silly to force people to take the journey with you to get to an answer for their pain. “First off, let me tell you about the 50 year history of my company (by year), then give you highly specific technical details about the equipment we use, then I’m going to list 15 things I do that you have no interest in without mentioning the one you really care about and lastly I am going to leave with us both feeling unfulfilled and wondering why when I call you tell me that you are happy with your current vendor.”
Jared Willis
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