Communication Definition
Looking up the definition of communication, one will find many examples that include an “exchange or interchange of ideas between two people”. Further, if we define “exchange and interchange” it states that there is a “giving and receiving”. So applying this to communication in Sales, we could come up with “a giving and receiving of information or ideas between two people.”
When the communication is occurring both ways in the sales process (from the sales prospect to the sales person and back again from the sale person to the sales prospect), how does it go? If it is only one way (say from the sales person to the sales prospect), how does it go?
The absolute best form of communication (a giving and receiving of information or ideas between two people) is where both the sales prospect and the sales person are giving communication and receiving communication to each other, back and forth until both parties have all the information they need and are completely satisfied.
Worldwide survey
Many years ago we participated in an International survey which showed that the number one feeling clients had about sales people is that they “talk too much”. I think we have all experienced the sales person who just starts to talk without any regard for what we may be interested in. In this situation, there is no REAL communication occurring, just a salesperson who is talking at you. The key problem here is the fact that this violates the basic definition of communication above. In this situation there is only one flow of communication (from sales person to sales prospect) and no exchange or interchange between them. Over the years I have found no real improvement in this statistic. In fact the situation has become worse. This is because there are unusual solutions created to handle communication problems with sales people.
Lack of communication from your prospective client
One of the key problems that sales people have is the lack of communication from the prospective client. When the client does not talk, this causes a natural space between the salesperson and client. In this situation, an unusual solution a sales person often comes up with is to fill this space with obsessive communication as an attempt to compensate for their lack of communication skills.
The salesperson must become skilled at getting the client to communicate. The salesperson that is professional in communication will find out what it is that the client is interested in and get them to talk about that. The salesperson that truly cares enough to find out how the client feels and what they are thinking will be successful. This skill requires continuous drilling of the Salesperson to become fully professional at it. Copies of these exercises can be found in the Knowledge Center.
Scripted selling
The next common “unusual solution” to a lack of communication skills is called scripted selling. This makes the problem even worse. For anyone who has experienced a sales person just reading from a script (script selling), I’m sure you can relate with how unnatural it is and the fact that it is not very conducive towards soliciting real communication! One of the key reasons for poor communication from sales people is the fact that they are trained on a script. No matter what the customer is communicating, the salesperson is required to follow the script. Have you ever been in a social situation that was scripted? A good rule to follow is that if you were meeting someone for the first time, what would you do? Would you would be interested to find out about them and their interests? Of course you would or should be! Likely you would listen to them, find out more about them and try to understand their point of view. So what is different when you are meeting a client for the first time? People will always like you because of you and not because you are trying to be someone else. Stop trying to “Sell”. You would not follow a script when you meet a new friend, so why would you script the sale? The key reason for scripted selling is that companies are compensating for a lack of effective training in communication.
Doing your homework before you make initial contact
Another key problem sales people have is they do not know what to say to the prospective client when they meet them for the first time. This is resolved by doing your homework on the potential client before you make that first contact. If you got the prospective client from a referral, contact the referring client to find out what they know about the referral. What they like, what they don’t etc… If you got the prospective client from marketing, what was the promotion they responded to? Then proceed to research your initial contact through internet search engines and visit the company website at a minimum. By the time you make that first contact, you should have a profile of the prospective client built so that you have plenty to talk about. Ideally, you should feel like you have a pretty good idea about the prospective client and like them and their company before you contact them.
Addressing communication in sales training
The major focus of sales trainings around the world is on “Closing”. If closing was truly the problem, then sales statistics should be excellent. Truth is that sales statistics continue to get worse. According to the Harvard Business Review, only 9.1% of sales meetings result in a sale. That means 90% of the money spent on marketing is wasted. Given that statistic, we can only come to two conclusions:

1. Either the sales training is ineffective or
2. Closing is not the problem.

We would say it is both. There is so much training out there covering the same material and results in “motivation” for you and your sales team but then there is no REAL change in their closing ratio!
Closing is actually the result of using effective communication in the sale. The salesperson that is truly a master in communication will naturally close. Communication is the key to closing and having a continuous improvement system with exercises that support you and your sales team is essential to raising your closing ratio.
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