There is this prevailing view in sales management that a salesperson has to be enthusiastic about their product, enthralled about the opportunities around them, and highly motivated to continually push past “no” until the customer finally relents and makes a purchase.
Persistence is an adjective all salespeople like to use, and rightfully so. Unfortunately, there are direct consequences to salespeople being overly optimistic and they’re ones most companies don’t see until it’s too late.
By the time the company has realized that its salesperson isn't actually listening to what customers actually want, they've already lost out on a number of opportunities.
Hiring a “Happy Ears” Salesperson
Happy ear salespeople are a dime a dozen. These salespeople are highly sought-after by companies due to their high-energy and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, companies don’t fully understand whom they’ve hired until months later. These are the salespeople who claim that all customers love them. They’re always that much closer to making that all-important monster sale.
Sure, they make a couple of sales, but never anywhere near the volume they boast about. Eventually the honeymoon ends, just in time for the company to go out and make the same hiring mistake again. So, why does this happen? More importantly, what are the consequences and signs that a salesperson is overly optimistic?
1. Not Listening to Customers
Insecure salespeople monopolize their customer’s time. They focus too much on what they know, too much on how the customer should use their product, and far too much time making sure the customer knows how knowledgeable they are.
A successful sale is about asking leading questions in order to get the customer to divulge their fears and concerns. This means the customer speaks 75% of the time and the salesperson speaks 25%. The happy ear salesperson ignores this entirely because they love the sound of their own voice. They just can’t help but interject to make sure the customer knows they’re dealing with an all-knowing salesperson.
2. Not Prioritizing Opportunities
If every customer loves the salesperson, and all will eventually place orders, then how can the salesperson prioritize opportunities? How do they differentiate between a prospect that is further along their sales pipeline, and one that is merely stuck in neutral? The answer is they can’t. That’s the problem. Every customer loves them – according to the salesperson of course.
3. Ignoring Customer Roadblocks, Obstacles and Stall Tactics
A skilled salesperson picks up on the obvious and less obvious customer roadblocks and stall tactics in a way that allows them to confront them directly and remove them as going concerns. Not the case for the happy ears salesperson. These customer obstacles just fly right past them. It’s in one ear, and out the other.
4. Inability to Gather Competitive Data
If you listen carefully, you’ll notice that customers divulge important data about competitor pricing and service. These subtle and not-so-subtle hints are invaluable tools to making a sale happen. Of course, you’ll never know because the overly optimistic salesperson you’ve hired is ignoring them entirely.
Winning business is all about gathering information, using it to push forward and retaining that information for future reference. That information could be customer-centric, market-related and or competitor-based. Regardless of what it’s about, every company needs a market intelligence gathering strategy and their salespeople are the all-important front line.
Stop Losing Business to Overseas Competitors
5. Wasting Valuable Time: Lost Market Share, Lost Customers and Lost Sales
At the end of the day, it’s all a waste of time, and wasting valuable time means losing market share, losing customers and losing sales. Unfortunately, you’ve become enamored by your new salesperson and want to give them a long leash. This is perfectly understandable and warranted. However, if your salesperson is as valued as they claim by your customers, then where are all those sales they keep talking about?
Now, it’s easy to point out the issues with a salesperson who is too enthusiastic and not able to disseminate important information. After all, what’s the all-important balance between being optimistic and enthusiastic enough to close the sale, but not so much that the salesperson misses out on important information? Ultimately, it comes down to a debriefing.
Every time your salespeople visit or speak with a customer, take the time to debrief their visit. Ask them pointed questions about the customer’s fears and concerns. Ask them about the customer’s timeline, their budget, their current vendors, their willingness to move forward and any relevant information pertaining to the sales cycle.
Look for instances where the salesperson stumbles and is unable to provide pertinent information. It may be a sign that they aren’t listening to the customer or aren’t able to disseminate important clues.
The best sales and negotiation course I’ve ever taken was Karrass Effective Negotiation, a course used by a majority of the Fortune 500 companies. In fact, Karrass is the preeminent negotiation course and most, if not all, sales courses are derived from the research perform by Dr. Chester Karrass over 45 years ago.
Another was Sandler Sales Institute. Both of these are invaluable negotiation courses whose focus is to get salespeople to listen first, disseminate information and then close.