Break the ‘Too Much Talking’ Habit – Part 2: An Interview with Steve Blum

“Salespeople are usually good influencers and negotiators who can make very compelling arguments. But if they talk too much, and don’t listen carefully enough, they can put the cart in front of the horse. They can start trying to sell the customer on something before the customer has actually even shared what is on his or her mind and what his or her needs are. When that happens, you get misalignment. There can be a desire to move too quickly to a closing conversation, at the expense of having the appropriate opening conversation that leads to more thorough, comprehensive, and compelling conversations afterwards.”

5 Big Changes Impacting Sales Teams

Shortly after the 08/2009 financial crisis, breakthrough research was published that showed how the internet, easily available information and new buying trends had emerged that was causing poorer results from traditional relationship focused, consultative selling methods. Better results were being generated from salespeople that brought more than just familiar solutions to the table. Five of these trajectory changing trends are:

Steve points out the impact of all the information available to buyers today…

“There is so much information available today. Customers are doing a tremendous amount of valuation in a buying cycle before they ever make contact with anybody from any of the companies they are considering buying from and that’s very different from 10 or 15 or 20 years ago. One of the worst habits is where salespeople just don’t do the research and the work to learn about their customers and prospects. Salespeople should never try to make a sale by contacting the prospect asking to learn more about their business. Instead, they should be doing the research and contacting the customer to ask a questions about how they can help them do something that they know they’re already working on.”

Steve reinforces exactly what we’ve learned in working with sales teams all over the world. Customers want more than the obvious solutions. They want new approaches and cutting edge ideas that they’re not even aware of…

“The best salespeople create a feeling in their customers of, ‘Oh my goodness, there are disruptions in my market, and if I don’t do something about this, I’m going to fall behind my competition.”

Knowing what to do vs. being able to do it…

What we’ve found, in working directly with sales teams, is many salespeople and sales managers know they need to ask better questions, listen and then share more disruptive insights, but that doesn’t mean they can do it. A casual golfer knows he needs to hit the ball straight and in the fairway, but that has little impact on his ability to actually do it. Talking too much and taking too much time to make key points with impact is a habit that takes practice to break. Steve has noticed…

“One of the big habits that I find sales folks implement, which detracts from a good customer experience, is when they want to do all the talking and just want to talk about themselves and their products. They don’t actually let the customer talk about their business challenges, opportunities, and how they’re trying to get a competitive advantage. Better salespeople do that. Then they provide insights on how we can help the customer achieve their goals. Speaking less and listening more is a good habit that should be constantly reinforced.”

What we’ve found, is more sales training today is focused on sales strategy, call planning and the analytic elements of understanding what to do than the actual verbal skills needed to do it. Sales is a verbal challenge, first and foremost and verbal habits and patterns are difficult to change and require practice. These are the areas we’ve found have the biggest impact on sales results if effective training and follow-up coaching is provided:

When asked where he felt sales training should focus, Steve shared with us…

“It’s essential to train salespeople on talking about results and outcomes as opposed to talking about features and functions overall. Sales training should focus on telling stories about results and outcomes and then giving some examples of companies that are doing things in different ways to be successful,” and continued with… “Training folks on how to be good storytellers is so important. The result is really powerful when you set the right context and then can tell some stories that are demonstrations of what is capable, what’s being done in a different way right now, and what benefits have been produced.”

First line sales managers are the key…

When we asked those same sales executives that told us talking too much is the worst habit salespeople get into what they found to be the toughest organizational challenge when it came to building a better sales force, over 80% of them talked about how difficult it is to get front line sales managers to do effective coaching. They admitted they’d spent a lot of time and money on that priority but hadn’t seen much movement. Steve shared with us…

“The most important role in a sales organization is the first line manager. They have the greatest direct impact on the largest number of people within the organization.”

Often, sales managers were promoted because they were good at sales and, in many cases, their success was based on unique personality factors that are not trainable or transferable. As such, many sales managers need to learn the art and science of coaching.

“Some managers are natural coaches. Most need to learn how to do it overall. Managers should be taught how to provide feedback. The manager needs to be trained on the sales processes that the reps are trained on and then taught how to coach their teams on great execution.”

The 5 roles of a sales manager

What we’ve found is there are 5 distinct roles that sales managers need to learn how to execute and interestingly, the one that is most often neglected is the skills development coach.

When we observe elite sports teams and the front line coaches that work with them, they spend a significant amount of time practicing, running drills, correcting, demonstrating and they do it on the practice field with the team. Practice is done before competition. Steve shared with us what he’s observed…

“The most effective first line managers provide real time feedback to the folks on their team about how they’re doing, what they can do better, and recognition of things they are doing well. The most impactful feedback is feedback right after something has occurred, either positive or negative, because it connects the most with what the individual had been doing and what he or she could have been doing better. If the manager starts taking over the responsibilities of the sales rep without developing the sales rep effectively, then they are limiting the company’s capacity and the reps capacity.”

Establish the discipline of regular skills development practice

Sales leaders can learn a lot from observing elite athletes, how they practice and train. A high percentage of top performers tell us they attribute much of their success to simply practicing and rehearsing prior to important sales calls. Steve points out…

“Sales reps often get into the mindset of, ‘I’ll try to do more things,’ Instead of do fewer things better. This often precludes practice, but practice actually is critical to doing fewer things better. As you practice more you get better at it overall.”

The best sales professionals approach practice and training the way the best athletes do. They’re relentless in their desire to get better as Steve has noticed…

“Take a look at professional athletes. Back when Tiger Woods was on his big winning streak and the most dominant golfer, he still had a swing coach who was going out to the driving range every week to help him continue to refine his swing. Baseball teams have hitting coaches and pitching coaches. These teams have folks at the top of their games, and they are still practicing. They’re putting the time in to get better at the skills that are so critical to their success, and we need to do that in our profession too. The best people actually do that in sales. They spend time practicing and they spend time continuing to acquire new skills.”

Practice and skills development builds confidence

Sales requires attitude control, the ability to shake off rejection and the kind of confidence that can be seen and heard on sales calls. More often than not, practice is the best way to build performance improving confidence. Steve has noticed…

“People perform best when they’re most confident in their ability to perform. The way you build confidence in how you perform is by doing it. The more you practice, the more confident you get at performing under pressure. You can either practice internally or externally. When you go and deliver a presentation to a customer, after the meeting, seek feedback from anybody. That delivery is an opportunity to get better and to learn from the experience so that you’re more refined the next time you go do it.”

The SalesGym is a research, consulting, and training company that works with and learns from sales teams all over the world and has refined a coaching and training process that trains sales teams the way elite athletes are trained. More insights and articles from us can be found on our RESOURCES PAGE.