Learn from a President Who Can't Sell

If I were the president, I would quickly get a copy of Real-World Selling for Out-of-This World Results. It seems like everyone in America, except him and possibly his advisors, have noticed that his salesmanship is lacking. 

You may have seen John Dickerson’s column in Slate. He cited the recent CBS survey which found that only 25 percent said that the economy is improving. More than eight in 10 say the condition of the economy is bad, up five points from last month. That’s 80 percent of the people surveyed. Those numbers show why President Obama’s sales strategy is missing the mark.

Solve a problem that people care about. In sales it’s not enough to have a product to sell that solves a problem. You may have called on customers and asked them about having a particular problem that you know you can solve with your products.  You find out that they do have the problem.  “Sure,” the customer says. We spend a lot of money on X. But, that doesn’t come out of my budget.” Or maybe they have the problem, but it’s an infrequent one that they can manage.

That customer is unlikely to do something about the problem. It’s only when the customer that you’re calling on is experiencing a problem and the customer believes that solving the problem is important that you have a chance of selling something. Yes, you can go higher up in the organization, but it’s unreasonable to expect a person without an interest in solving the problem to do something about it and buy something.

How does that relate to President Obama? Yes, the American public gets that Social Security is going bankrupt. Yes, we know that health care insurance is expensive.  The CBS survey said that only 6 percent of those surveyed said that health care was the country’s most important problem. What was Obama’s first priority? Health care.  Mr. President, sell what your customers want.

You have to respect your customers. Then there was the actual health care bill that passed. You may remember the devious dealings and strong arm tactics the President used to get the 1,000 plus page bill to squeak through Congress.  You may remember the promises about what it would cost. A Pew Research Center/National Journal poll found that only 35 percent of those surveyed approved of the health care bill.  Those people are remembering what they wanted, what they got, and what it cost. Sounds like buyer’s remorse to me.

What’s the quickest way to create buyer’s remorse?  It’s when salespeople use strong arm tactics to sell. It’s when you say one thing before the sale and then after the sale your customer finds out that the reality is different.  It’s when your customer needs one thing, but you sell him more than he needs. Hmm. That sounds like the health care bill. In sales, it’s a bad idea to misrepresent your product.

I do have to give the President credit for executing one effective sales strategy. It is absolutely essential for long-term sales success that you tell your customers the truth.  If you can remember, President Obama campaigned on a message of change. Isn’t that the truth.