December 16th, 2011 | Sales Coaching

This Is A Sales Call, Not A Marriage Proposal

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For some salespeople, maintaining an appropriate emotional distance from their clients is no problem. For others, it’s a real struggle.

Sales is about gaining trust. It’s not about promising a prospect the stars and the moon. If you find yourself getting down on bended knee and proclaiming of course it’s no problem to push the shipment through three days early (knowing full well the havoc this will create for production), that’s a clear sign you’ve lost sight of your mission.

Too many salespeople—especially those new to sales—fall into the black hole of overvaluing relationships. Overvaluing relationships means placing too much emphasis on the dynamic between yourself and your prospect.

Going into a sales call with a mindset of wanting to sell something compromises your filter. Instead of determining if you even have a qualified buyer in front of you, you leapfrog to the marriage proposal and place yourself in the position of saying anything to close the deal.

If this is you, you need to work to maintain an emotional distance. On the one hand, you should be able to engage prospects and clients in a cordial, friendly, professional manner while, on the other hand, allowing objection and rejection to roll off your back. If you slide into overvaluing relationships, the danger is that you:

Lose objectivity
Lose sight of the mission
Have a hard time handling rejection
Take it personally when you receive an objection
Compromise too much in negotiation

Overvaluing relationships lead to a number of negative outcomes. However, there are several things you can do:

Talk with your sales manager. Make them aware of the issue.
Use an in-depth sales assessment or personality assessment tool that can help you understand your cognitive structure.
Ask for sales coaching.

You may believe that ingratiating yourself with a prospect is the fastest and surest way to make a sell, but this is wrong thinking. While there’s no denying that people like to buy from people they like, they will always do business with someone they trust.

If you’re putting too much energy toward relationship building versus following the sales process, take immediate action to seek coaching on the proper method for maximizing each sales opportunity to its fullest potential.