The importance of versatility

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Wanted: CEOs from India

Consider for a moment the following sales situations:

* Should the technical-minded customer be satisfied with a salesperson’s broad-brush explanations, or buyer benefits, about the product?

* Should the decisive customer be tolerant of the precise and systematic salesperson whose attention to detail would try the patience of Job?

* Should the flamboyant and forceful salesperson intimidate the conservative and cautious customer?

* Should the easy-going and affable salesperson irritate the restless and impatient customer?

These are not reasonable expectations and in any one of these situations, or their reverse, the salesperson’s natural selling style is alien, even hostile, toward the customer’s natural buying style. In as much as they are alien toward the customer, they are detrimental to producing a successful outcome—a sale. If, instead, sales people practised versatility in their approach then each of these problematic encounters could be avoided.

In failing to adapt our selling style, to show versatility, to meet the customer’s buying style, we are like the obdurate Englishman abroad. The one who insists on speaking English despite the fact the Frenchman doesn’t understand the language. The one who then blames the Frenchman when he fails to make himself understood! In such situations, most reasonable-minded people would not expect the Frenchman to learn

English. Similarly, why should we expect a customer to buy from us in the way we like to sell, rather than in the way they like to buy? It’s absurd!

We might suppose such problems simply do not arise between speakers of the same language. How wrong we would be to make this assumption. Communication failure between salespeople and customers is much more common that we might imagine. How do we know this? Well, take your average salesperson. During the course of any given week, he or she will present products or services to any number of potential customers. For various reasons, not everyone buys. Perhaps it will be the wrong product, or the wrong price. Yet for some customers, neither the product, nor the price will be an issue. So why will they not buy? Plain and simple—they will not be convinced. In other words, the salespeople will have failed to communicate how or why the product will benefit the customer. They may, of course, think that they did, but, self-evidently they hadn’t, for if they had the customers would have bought.