If you haven’t already read Friday’s post, “Do your customers want you to be a better sales person?“, you may want to do that first and don’t miss Mr. Sunshine’s comment.

Now, I’m not saying that your customers want you to read and memorize ‘101 ways to close the sale’. Nor am I suggesting that your customers want you to learn how to handle every objection under the sun. And, I certainly don’t believe that they want you to master every secret sales trick known to man. Prospects not only see your tricks and moves, but they can see you getting ready to do it and could probably help you do it better.

So, what do I mean when I say that your customers want you to be a better salesperson?

First, giving credit to Steve, your customers want you to grow your business, but when you waste time with prospects from hell that will most likely be customers from hell (if they buy), all that extra time has to come from somewhere and it probably comes from time that you should be putting into servicing your existing customers. BTW, yes, your customers DO want you to grow your business because if you don’t, you’ll probably go out of business and then who will service them. (A great reason for them to give you referrals, but that’s another post.)

The second reason that your customers want you to get better at sales is that they want you to sell them the RIGHT solution and not sell them anything if it’s not the right solution. Weak salespeople sell what they can even if it won’t solve the customer’s problem. Bad salespeople sell a customer EVERYTHING THAT THEY CAN, even if the customer doesn’t need it. Customers want to buy from someone who understands their business, has the expertise to help and will help.

Finally, customers want a salesperson who will make proper use of time. Asking pointless questions. Making inappropriate presentations and proposals. Asking for 5 minutes and taking an hour. Not taking the time to understand decsionmaking or any other part of the process can waste hours or weeks depending on the complexity of the issues involved.

You are welcome to suggest other reasons, but I think it might be more interesting for you to try to answer this question.

Can you think of any reason that your customer would not want you to be a better salesperson?

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Carole Mahoney sent this to me with the question, “and the sales lesson is?”.

One  of my clients has had several breakthroughs recently. I asked them if they would like to do a guest post about them and they replied, “I don’t know if I want my customers to know that I have a sales coach.”

I can immediately think of three reasons why your customers DO want you to be a better sales person and I’m giving you a heads up that that will be my next post. If you have thoughts that you’d like included, please share in the comments.

Rick,