We were sitting in a giant horseshoe, apparently the perfect shape for corporate meetings. O captain my captain was standing at the front of the room and asked us this question:
"I know this is getting a little basic, and it's always good to go over the basics, but what exactly do you guys do?"
People spoke up, "We're problem solvers!", "We discover solutions!", "We give you warm fuzzy feelings", the last one was only said loudly in my mind.
The captain responded "So you guys aren't order takers right!"
Have you ever had somebody walk in the front door of your business, know exactly what they wanted, you provided the service perfectly and both sides exited the sale happy, healthy and likely to work together in the future?
I've had that a couple of times. It was magical.
Order taking is an art form. Have you ever had a great waiter? That is an artisan order taker. Have you ever worked with a skilled carpenter? He's not a sculptor creating whatever he wants, he's an artisan order taker.
We have this fawning love affair with sales people, with problem solvers. The truth is, a salesperson is usually abrasive because they are trying to sell something that is hard to sell or hard to buy.
Apple gets this, when they hire people for the floor in their retail locations they hire teachers, and teachers outsell everybody in that environment. An environment where you teach me what the device can do and then take my order when I can't wait to own one.
If people are not walking into your business and ordering your product that is not a sales issue, it's an awareness issue, maybe an education issue, possibly it's that your product sucks.
Back when I was at Northwestern Mutual we had a monthly meeting among the sales people called "client builder". It was great, we would all meet once a month and share what was working and go through our numbers to see where we were falling short. It was the best sales meetings I've ever attended.
But it was exactly that, a sales meetings. It was not client building. The truth is we were selling life insurance, and life insurance is hard to sell and hard to buy. You need to be a boss freaking sales person.
Nobody wants to buy it because they have to admit their own inevitable death, and everybody has a preconceived notion you are jerk because you sell life insurance. And it's a complicated product to understand. And you are paid on commissions which makes you smelly to normal people.
Now, go talk to the number one "sales" person who answers the phone at SelectQuote, the biggest online life insurance sales company, and you will find out that person is a artisan order taker. They probably calm people down, explain that buying more is actually cheaper than buying less, explain how different terms work and guide people through the order.
But in the rest of the world of financial sales, you really do want your team building clients, not selling. Clients don't leave, clients don't shop you, you trust your own clients and they trust you. When the market goes down, you answer their calls. When they have a child and need more life insurance they answer your call.
There are very few times when a true sales person is needed, not an order taker and not a client builder. Sales people are hammers, and hammers are critical for a woodworker but only to be used when a hammer is required, every other time they just damage the product.
Hammers help wood understand that they need nails.
I remember asking the number one sales person in our office at Northwestern when he stopped calling people who were either not buying or not returning his phone calls. I said, do you stop after five calls, after ten calls... He said he stopped calling them when they yelled at him to stop calling them.
That guy is a hammer, and there are people all over town with hammer marks all over their face from interacting with him. Maybe that's ok, but I promise that none of the people who were hammered will ever buy from him or probably Northwestern ever again.
If somebody walks into a bank and wants a checking account and leaves with a credit card, a home equity line and a savings account, every sales manager would say that is a win. But what if they get home, realize they have hammer marks all over them and are afraid to ever go to the bank again or ask a question because they know they are interacting with hammers.
And they will never send over a great referral, a referral that walks in the front door ready to put an order no hammer needed.
Hammers are needed. Hammers are important. But would you hire a construction company that had three vans lined up outside your house full of nothing but hammers?
Final side note -
Have you ever been doing a home project and needed a hammer and couldn't find one? Asking a really good order taker to sell to every client that walks in the front door is like hammering a nail into the wall with a pipe wrench. It will probably work but you look like an idiot and either the wall or your hand will probably get injured.
No comments:
Post a Comment