The Product Doesn't Matter! by Dan Adams

This month's question is a great reminder of the the importance of your position as a sales rep.  As a true sales consultant, you make the difference -- your product is secondary.  As a superstar, you can derive satisfaction knowing that your customer is making a decision with your help as a trusted advisor.



Q:    Dan:  When I joined my company several years ago we had the luxury of having a new family of products that were superior compared to our competitors' solutions. Now that the competition has announced new products it is  harder to win deals. I'm having trouble convincing our marketing department to accelerate new product launches.  Any thoughts to help me to hold my market share until our new products arrive?

Lucy Watt

Phoenix, AZ

A:  Lucy, Thanks for your great question. Your situation is not uncommon. To solve the problem and help you on your path to superstardom let's try to see the world differently. Here is the key:

True or false: A sales rep's success is tied directly to the quality of the product or solution she is offering. As a buyer visiting car dealerships, you may have thought you were comparing car A with car B. But actually, what you were really comparing was sales rep A with sales rep B. That's what happens in customers' minds. The sales rep acts as the intermediary between the customer and the product or service, greatly influencing how people buy. The customer bases his decision, for the most part, on the actions of this intermediary (that is, if the sales rep is a superstar). After all, a car is a car is a car. Any of them will get you where you want to go. Yes, the sales rep does have to have a decent product. But in most cases the solutions are very similar, and it's the rep who makes the difference. The rep enjoys a position between the product and the customer's perception of that product. It is the sales rep who can make that product look worse than, equal to, or better than the competitor's product. Superstars know that the difference between the products is really the difference that the superstar brings to the table in the form of consultative selling skills. Superstars differentiate themselves not by what they sell but by how they sell.

If the sales rep is not a superstar, then the customer makes the decision based on price and features. With no superstar rep in the picture, the customer's decision is easy: Buy the one with the lowest price. One thing that drew me to sales training was realizing the difference a great rep can make to a company. We've all had a chance to observe this. Consider what happens to a company when one of its superstars leaves a territory - sales drop almost immediately. The converse is true when an experienced consultant is placed in a new territory - sales immediately increase. What changed? Has the company drastically reduced price, changed its marketing strategy, or announced a new product? No. After more than twenty years of witnessing this, I have seen time
and time again that the cause of the sales drop is the departure of that particular superstar. This proves that the sales rep is critical! 

Lucy, the bottom line is that you must stop looking to your company to provide extraordinary products and look to utilizing your own consultative selling skills as the key differentiator that will earn the business for you.

Good Luck, and Close 'Em!

About
the Author:

Daniel Adams, author of Building Trust, Growing Sales,
and creator of Trust Triangle Selling™ helps corporations
improve their profits by optimizing the performance of their sales
teams. He is a frequent and popular speaker at national sales
meetings, workshops and association events. You can visit his
web site and read his other articles at www.trusttriangleselling.com.