Table of Contents
A. Some Theories of Sales
1. Sales appears a “not so desirable” career or profession at first because we have seen sales girls, boys, door-to-door salespeople, and now day-long sales calls for loans. So in general sales is not as decorated a career as Doctor or Engineer(Social Perception).
2. However, if you are a designer, doctor, engineer, mechanic, HR, or programmer, you are not likely to reach the top of a corporate ladder. If you are in sales, and spend some years, you will rise the leader faster and would have a go at the board, executive, and CxO posts.
3. We all sell starting from birth. The child gives a smile, and the parents start loving.
4. So, everyone sells but hates being called a salesman/saleswoman/sales. So, everyone is in the sales profession.
5. Taking a cue from (4) you stop calling yourself “I am in sales”, instead say “I am a decision consultant.” (D)
(Nobody in history has stated “I was sold a car,” instead they say “I bought my dream car.” Buying is a tough decision, loaded with fear of being cheated, investing in unnecessary things, etc. So, when you close, you are essentially eliminating the decision anxiety of a buyer.)
B. The Framework DICE
D: Decision Consultant
I: Information
C: Concerns
E: Education
1. Assuming the fact that you have got the lead from marketing, you are now not selling anything. You are a decision consultant. You have to know the prospect’s decision anxiety, and his/her life.
2. So, I=Information, you converse with the prospect, learn more about him/her, a natural conversation when the prospect does the talking. You make notes and schedule the next call. Study about his/her life pointers.
3. C=Concerns. Why the prospect is looking for a solution, and what exactly is the core problem? For instance, we had a patient with back pain. After thorough history taking, we learned that his major concern was a conflict with his father, back pain was just an outcome. We solved the key problem, and the back pain was gone. Hospitals sold painkillers, physiotherapy, etc for 3 years.
4. E=Education. Your next call should be around educating the prospect. Here too, you are not simply going to pitch your product and others as a comparison.
a) Visual representation.
b) All possibilities(be honest) So if someone is looking to solve a transport problem to go to the office from home with a distance of 1km, motivate him to walk, not use EV just because you have to sell one.
c) Data, Story, Science.
(Here too you are not pitching your product)
5. If you do ICE well, the prospect will trust you. It will come from the prospect “what you have on offering?” By this question, the decision is already made by the prospect to go with you.
C. Is product knowledge not the most important aspect of sales?
Take on product knowledge:
1. My Example: I created Lyfas 6 years back, and prior to that I worked in emergency cardiology for 8 years. After 14 years, I still know Lyfas is not more than 5%, and cardiology is less than 1%.
2. What sales personnel or commoners believe is knowledge is in reality some information about a product and system. For instance, a Pharma Rep selling paracetamol may have info about fever, Viral/bacterial/inflammatory, pharmacies-pathology of paracetamol, other products, and side effects. He would still not have an idea about the ion level functioning of the chemicals, changes in all 46 hormones and steroids after the drug enters, renal load, manufacturing, and so on.
So, no sane people will ever use “I know.”
Example.
3. Everyone thinks they know E=mc^2. But that’s just info in their brain. I can apply cognition to it and interpret if Energy is a function of light speed, if the light is zero, energy will be zero. So, if I eat less, and turn off the lights, I will have better sleep(zero energy), and overeating/keeping the light on will increase my Energy needs, the body can’t sleep.
A sleep salesman will sell sleep pills, I will educate with Einstein’s law, who you guess will close the sales?
Conclusion
Blackhat Senior type of Push sell, loan calls is like forced sex, rape. Sales is seduction, not sex. Live the process, learn, help, and don’t sell.
