Sometimes You'll Sell More By Selling Less
It's true that less is often more when it comes to successful sales. Here's how to apply that lesson to your own work as a sales professional.
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PrintUnless there’s a product shortage, I don't know any salespeople who get asked to sell less.
Yet for some successful sales professionals, selling less is a way to reach their goals. Here's why -- and how you can learn from their experiences.
Be picky for your customers. I was recently talking to a top industrial supplies sales professional about his business. He does well in good and bad economies. He’s got hundreds of products that he can sell. That’s not why he’s doing well. Even with the extensive numbers of products that he could sell, he doesn’t sell them all.
This salesman probably sells only 20 percent of the products in his catalog. I asked him why. He said, “I don’t believe in all of them. I know some are better than others, and that’s what I recommend to my customers.”
Not only does he know what’s best for his customers, he doesn’t shy away from selling more expensive products. He knows that some of these products will do more for his customers than less expensive ones. That’s when he educates his customers so they are willing to pay more for the products he recommends. He can’t afford to sell under-performing products, so he doesn’t choose them to sell.
Listen to how you sound. How do you think you sound when you sell great products that you believe in? Confident and enthusiastic, right? Now think about those salespeople who push products on customers. It’s hard to build the enthusiasm to mislead customers. Those people sound flat and unenthusiastic. Which do you think sells, enthusiasm or indifference? The research says it’s enthusiasm.
Dr. Alex Pentland is a professor at the MIT Media Lab. He researches how people use nonverbal communication and wrote a book on the topic, Honest Signals. Pentland conducted an experiment where he studied people who were pitching business plans in a competition. These were midcareer, successful business executives.
It didn’t matter who they were. Pentland could estimate each executive's success in scoring in the competition just by listening to their tone of voice. The ones who were more excited about their business plans got higher scores. The plan or the people were not important for the result. Now you know why shady salespeople fake enthusiasm for the products they sell.
Less is more. How many choices of products do you offer your customers? More than three? This successful salesperson doesn't. If you offer 10 or more possible choices, it takes too much time to decide, and it's too difficult to do.
Research on choice says that too many choices make it harder, not easier, for someone to make a selection. By limiting his customers’ choices, he made it easier for his customers to buy.
Sure, you want to sell more products or services. The architect Ludwig Mies van der Roh emphasized clarity and simplicity in architecture when he said, “Less is more.” It also can apply to sales.
Maura Schreier-Fleming is a sales strategist and founder of Best@Selling, a sales training and consulting company. She wrote Monday Morning Sales Tips and works with sales professionals who want to sell more and get more business.
