Forgive me! I’ve written about seek mode before, and I’ve probably even told the following story at some point in these pages.
>But stay with me.
Back when I used to make joint calls with client salespeople I had an experience that I’ll never forget. After a joint call with John on one of his best long-term customers, Al, we were all saying the usual niceties in the lobby. While the two of them were shaking hands, Al proceeded to give John a “man hug.”
With the embrace Al said, “You know, John, in the 10 years we’ve been working together this is the best meeting our two companies have ever had. Don’t get me wrong, but this is the first time you came in here and really tried to understand what my company is trying to accomplish as a business!”
Tell me that type of comment isn’t good for John’s business with Al’s company.
Seek mode isn’t about getting info, it’s about distinguishing your company
Indeed – and mission accomplished. What I’d been teaching John by making the joint call with him was the right way to “leave the product at the door” and step back to better understand a customer’s bigger picture business issues.
Indulge me with your forgiveness yet a second time for the hyper-cockiness, but I did say, the “right way!”
By now most salespeople have figured out that it’s a good idea to listen more and ask better questions. And, that’s precisely how they come across to customers: as a salesperson who’s learned that he or she should ask more questions and listen better—probably not the projection that’ll garner them hugs from their customers.
Fake seek mode hinders a sales campaign
In fact, done incorrectly, asking and listening can backfire, hindering a deal’s progress or progress in a customer relationship. How? Think: interrogation, survey, snooping.
What makes John’s experience different? It was real seek mode, not faux seek mode.
To explain, let’s back up. How many salespeople have heard, “You ought to be in sales, you’ve got the gift of gab?” Because sales evolved as a profession of telling, mastering the ability to communicate information evolved as the cornerstone of traditional selling.
In fact, most salespeople define their ultimate professional purpose in terms of what they say and how they say it, as in: “The better the customer understands my company’s (product, solutions, value, expertise, etc.) the more successful I will be.” I call this operating in tell mode.
Some familiar forms of faux seek mode
But here’s the rub: there are degrees of tell mode, and some of them can look like seek mode. At the lowest end of tell mode is the primitive, product-pitching approach to selling (we’re all familiar with that graphic metaphor, “show up and throw up”). Of course, this looks nothing like seek mode. However, other forms of tell mode can.
Take for example, “solution selling,” “consultative selling,” “value selling,” etc. These forms of tell mode are more elegant and effective than the product-pitching forms. In fact, they often employ a fair amount of asking and listening.
But the purpose of that ask-and-listen approach is, ultimately, to uncover needs to help the salesperson tell the customer how his or her product or solution meets those needs. Don’t get me wrong, this is much better than the stop-me-when-you-hear-something-you-like approach to selling. But the listening serves only the purpose of helping to arm the salesperson for a better pitch.
There’s yet another form of faux seek mode. It happens right after salespeople learn the latest strategic sales account management process as they attempt to extract (and it usually feels that way to the customer) the information they need about “economic buyers” and whatnot to help them complete their account plan.
The two things that define the real deal
Salespeople do indeed need to ask more questions and do a much better job of listening. But I invite them to think about how they go about doing so. Unfortunately, most sales questioning does come across as an interrogation, survey, snooping or just some mechanical sales process being thrust upon the customer.
To gauge whether your questioning is seek mode or its faux brethren, ask yourself two questions:
- Do I believe that if I knew everything humanly knowable about an account (you’re omniscient, you even know things before they happen), would I still need to ask a lot of questions? In fact, would I need to ask the very questions that I could answer better than the contact I’m asking? If your answer is yes, then you’re halfway there.
- When I leave my question-asking meetings with the customer, how does the customer feel: like John’s customer Al or like he/she’s been interrogated or surveyed?
Consider these two questions often and you are on your way to a certain magic that comes from operating in real seek mode.
