Wouldn’t it be great if your prospect gave you a checklist to complete, and if you followed that checklist, they would buy from you?  Of course it would – what fool wouldn’t follow a set of directions handed to them by the person who writes the check?  And yet it happened to me this week. Six times.  And all I was trying to do was buy a new car.

That’s right.  I was dealing with one of the most despised creatures on earth:  the car salesperson.

The checklist was simple.  It gave the exact make and model, the options I wanted, and the color.  In addition, I explained that I would not be paying for any other factory options or dealer ad-ons like floor mats.  If they didn’t have the exact car I wanted or couldn’t get it, they could hit the magic delete button on my e-mail.  All I asked for was the price of the car, the monthly lease fee, and all the other nickel and dime things up front before I stepped in the dealer’s showroom.  I wanted the paperwork all done through e-mail before I picked up the car, and wanted to spend no more than 45 minutes in the showroom the day I took delivery, no test drive needed.  Nowhere did I say I would choose a car based on price.  Simple, right?

Well, no.

All six dealers sent me form letter e-mails, inviting me come in for a chat, look at the colors and options, discuss my budget, and take a test drive or two.  So with all of my “buying signals” given to them in writing, how is it that six different companies blew a sure thing sale?  Professional salespeople attend expensive week long seminars to learn how to detect these buying signals.  Senior level sales professionals are paid more than junior level sales professionals because they have decades of experience which enable them to pick up on these barely visible signs that buyers try to hide.

Is there a more dysfunctional selling paradigm than that of the automobile sale?

Doubtful.

And yet I see variations of this every day, from the simple consumer electronics gadget sale to the multi-million dollar global IT system sale.  Why is this?  Why are so many salespeople so bad?

Maybe that is an unfair questions, but not because most salespeople are good.  It is an unfair question because half of the blame resides with the customer.  That’s right.  The guy on the other side of the table, the one with the checkbook, the furrowed browed guy who keeps looking at the price page of your proposal?  Yes, that guy.  He has been taught by you and dozens of your peers over the years that he needs to protect his company against you and your ilk, because he thinks that you’re out for yourself, trying to charge as high a price as possible, and will then head off to your condo in Maui for two weeks and ignore his phone calls.

Is it the buyer’s fault that they see salespeople as adversaries instead of partners?  I don’t think so.  But there is a better way forward for salespeople.  If you choose your prospects and clients carefully, if you can develop a relationship to the level where they are willing to learn from you why your product or service is the best overall value, and you can then have them bring you up through their company to the decision makers, then you can dramatically improve your sales and waste far less time.

This is not hard stuff.  I’ve been successful selling this way for decades, and I’m as lazy as a salesman can get.  Maximum results for minimum effort is my goal.  I have taught these skills around the world in various formats, from two day crash courses to week long full immersion courses.  You can get the same information right here (minus the important student interaction portions, unfortunately) on this blog.  So go ahead and bookmark this page and come back to it for the next chapter at least once a week.  I’ll do my best to make it worth your while.

And the car fiasco?  Finally, one dealership figured out how I wanted to buy, followed my format, and sold me the car.  He wasn’t the cheapest, but he made it the easiest for me, and with this purchase, that is what I was looking for.