Why Passion Doesn't Sell

Are you passionate about your product? Think your service is pretty slick?

If so, you may have lots of trouble getting into big companies and winning their business. Your own eagerness and enthusiasm may actually create significant obstacles in your sales efforts.

For years I've worked with companies who love their offerings too much.

Management believes that if customers just knew all the details about their incredible product/service, they'd instantaneously want to work with their firm. Unfortunately this kind of behavior turns prospective buyers off. Truth be told, they could give a rip about your impressive capabilities or processes.

Corporate decision makers are much too busy worrying about their own butts and business objectives.

With the continuous reorganization and downsizing in big companies, many corporate employees are very concerned with job stability. Plus, they're overwhelmed with the sheer amount of work they need to get done. Back-to-back meetings fill up their entire day.

The last thing in the world these overworked, stressed out decision makers want to do is hear you blab about your wonderful offering. From their perspective, what you sell is simply a tool to help them get where they want to go.

Did you hear that? Your offering is simply a tool. No one really wants it.

But will they do business with you? You bet - if you help them understand what your tool does for their company.

I've been doing sales training for years. In all that time, I've never been brought into a sales organization because some decision maker loved my programs. My clients want increased sales, better profitability, more customers and a more predictable revenue stream. That's the only reason they spend money for my workshops.

When I contact prospective customers, I don't mention my training sessions at all. They are irrelevant. Instead I focus on the difficulty in getting into large corporations today and the challenging of meeting growth objectives when your salespeople can't set up meetings.

Think about how you can reframe what you sell so that it has value from a customer's perspective.

• If you sell software, stop thinking about all your differentiators and think about the impact you have on their operations.

• If you're a consultant, forget about your unique methodology that everyone could care less about and focus on the results of your work.

• If you're a web design firm, don't talk about websites. Figure out how you help your clients drive more traffic to their site, improve their conversion rates and drive sales.

• If you sell printers, don't stress how many pages per minute your systems handle. Take a look at how you can reduce the overall costs of printing within an organization.

• If you sell products or services that create growth opportunities, talk about how you've improved your client's revenue or helped them enter new markets.

For your own sales success, it is imperative to realize from the bottom of your heart that your offering is simply a tool.

Stop talking about it or you'll love it to death.

Comments

[Gary Patton]

Yours is a great reminder, Jill, that WIIFT,(What's In It For Them) not WIIFM (What's In It For Me) is how we sell anything to anyone.

One's passion can open doors. Or, as you remind us, cause them to be slammed in our faces.

That's why a while back I wrote:
“The most dangerous weapon in the universe is a soul ignited by passion.” -- Gary Patton (1942 -), Canadian customer care specialist

Living life passionately to the full ...forever,
Gary

[Gavin Ingham]

You're so right. Passion is important of course but it needs to be controlled! I often ask salespeople what makes a top seller and they give me words like motivated, passionate, tenacious, goal-driven etc. They usually conclude that selling is for the large part attitude.

That might well be right. Problem is however that without the right skills all one becomes is a motivated idiot. Rushing in and spouting about your own products and solutions without thought for the WIIFM for the client would certainly create motivated idiots... and no-one likes that!

Keep up the good blogs.