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When we evaluate a sales team, we score every rep across the stages of a sale. Prospecting. Qualifying. Uncovering the problem. Presenting. Closing.
Most of them come back strongest at presenting.
Presenting is the only stage a rep can practice alone. I know what I'm going to say. I've said it enough times that I can run the whole thing while thinking about something else.
Sellers have been rehearsing that one skill for decades. It used to be flip charts they carried into the room. Then it was a deck. In software it's the demo.
A live conversation gives you none of that. You don't know what the other person is about to ask. They don't know what you're going to say. You work off each other and nobody is driving.
That's uncomfortable. So reps head for the ground they know.
Where It Starts
We're taught from about age five to show people how much we know. That's how you get the grade. Nobody retrains us before we hand out a quota.
So a rep sitting with a buyer who has told them almost nothing will open the deck anyway. It's the move that feels like competence.
What The Buyer Sees
I read an interview with a VP at a Fortune 1000 company who gets pitched every day, by email and sometimes by phone. His complaint was that sellers lean on their decks. He said he wants somebody who can sit down and have a conversation with him. If they can't do that, he doesn't give them much credibility or much of his time.
He is describing the exact skill your team has spent the least time on.
Where The Training Money Goes
When a team is struggling, the usual response is more product knowledge. That sharpens the stage they were already sharpest at and leaves everything else where it was.
Give them a structure for the part they can't control. How to run a conversation they didn't script. What to listen for. What to do when an answer opens something up.
A buyer says the price is high. The reflex is to defend the number or go hunting for room to discount. What we teach is one line. You must be bringing that up for a reason. Then stop talking. I've had buyers tell me they only wanted me to know, and then write the check at the number.
Once a rep has that, the deck stops being the safe place to run.
Ask your reps which stage of a sale they're best at.
Then ask which one they've practiced the most.
Same answer twice.
What I Wrote About On LinkedIn Recently
Free Consulting And Skinny Kids A buyer asks if you can do a certain thing. The rep goes and finds out. Then it's how would you solve this other problem. Fetch. Then an extra feature. Fetch. Often the buyer is building a case to go beat up whoever they're already paying, and nobody ever asked why the question was being asked.
She Never Asked A Single Question A young woman my wife mentored came over and asked her to bake a cake for her boyfriend. My wife was seven and a half months pregnant with a toddler hanging off her leg. Afterward my wife mentioned the young woman was having a hard time with her friends. I told her I knew why.
