Park It in the Sold Line

"Park It in The Sold Line"

Transcript (for general use only – machine-generated and it may not be accurate)

Kelli (00:01) What would it take for you to buy this pen from me today?

Dave (00:04) You're selling pens now?

Kelli (00:06) Well, if I was, you would really like this pen because the titanium dioxide rollerball that glides...

Dave (00:12) You're setting me up for something here.

Kelli (00:15) I'm practicing my lines.

Dave (00:17) What lines?

Kelli (00:18) I have to follow this stupid new selling structure because the boss told me that the new consultant they just hired and dumped on us guarantees it will help us sell more.

Dave (00:29) Oh, boy. We need to talk about this one before it's too late.

Intro (00:35) Hi I'm Dave and I'm Kelli, and this is my job here is done. If you really want that next promotion or you're a rising star entrepreneur, we have some stories to tell that will absolutely help you. I've been starting and running businesses all my life. And I've worked for the man like a dog for decades. Together we'll share stories, ideas and notions that will help you absolutely soar past that cruiser sitting next to you. And if you're grinding forward with your growing business, we know where the landlines are. Let's find them. Hey, it's only about 20 minutes. What do you have to lose? Nothing.

Kelli (01:21) Thanks again for joining us today.

Dave (01:23) I'm Dave

Kelli (01:23) and I'm Kelli. And welcome to the podcast. Before we get started, just a quick reminder that you can learn more about the podcast, listen to all the previous episodes, read our bonus blog material and interact with us at our website. My myjobhereisdone.com and on Twitter, @myjobpodcast.

Dave (01:42) So this is the one about structured selling programs.

Kelli (01:46) Now wait, you say I'm not in sales. So why listen? Because you will be on the receiving end of these programs and you may have had good or bad experiences in the past. You might not even know if you are being manipulated.

Dave (02:00) We break these selling systems down a bit here, expose some freakiness, share a story or two and also show you how they can be super effective in business. Let's first set the stage. What exactly is structured selling or programmatic selling? One definition could be, unlike Freeform selling, and that's kind of where the salesperson is able to just use their personality and tactics to sell you something, Structured selling is very scripted and if used as intended, every different salesperson that you would encounter would use the exact same script for every customer.

Kelli (02:34) And you know, that feels weird at times.

Dave (02:36) Yeah, but also, it likely has helped increase sales. But you're right. It can get really weird. Do you have a memory of a weird one?

Kelli (02:46) Yes, I do have an example - some furniture stores.

Dave (02:51) Yeah, and I would agree.

Kelli (02:53) And you actually can see them peering out the window as you're approaching the front door. You're going to get jammed. And somebody's right there the minute you open that door. Hi. How are you today? What's going on? What are you looking for?

Dave (03:10) I didn't even get a chance to get through the door yet.

Kelli (03:12) No. And this is me, Open the door. Oh, boy. Turn around. Back out the door.

Dave (03:18) Yeah, but most people will continue to go in and start to fall into the I guess you could call it the routine of this structured selling.

Kelli (03:28) Well, sure. If you need furniture, you're going to have to put up with this process.

Dave (03:33) And that process is not just meeting you at the door and greeting you. You think that's kind of benign, but really, that's the set up. They're structurally setting you up for the entire shopping experience.

Kelli (03:45) Another great example, nd my favorite, is car shopping.

Dave (03:49) Oh, you have probably hit on the number one industry that uses structured selling, and it can get kind of weird. Everybody will know that they have had an experience with structured selling. When you remember buying a car and the salesperson brought out what they call the worksheet. And on that worksheet, there are four quadrants, and they've got numbers in each of the quadrants. Your trade in value, the cost of the car, what you want as your monthly payments, so on and so forth. And it's all a game of Tomfoolery tricking you to feel good about one Quadrant while another Quadrant is actually turned upside down against your favor.

Kelli (04:30) And if I recall, aren't they sometimes in different colors, like green? That number is red.

Dave (04:37) Yeah. You don't want red, that's bad for you. You want all green on your car buying experience, right? Yeah. So car buying can be a bad experience for you if you don't like being in a programmed and structured selling environment. But I can tell you right now, most car salespeople are new, and the reason why car dealerships use these programs is because they actually work. And I'm not a big fan of aggressive structured selling systems because believe that it doesn't allow you to really show value and to really get a customer to buy from you rather than sell to them.

Dave (05:17) And there's a big difference between those two things. I think that structured selling programs can be designed to be very effective in just about every business. And if you're free forming it, you'd probably be better off if you structured it a little bit.

Kelli (05:31) And I think it definitely depends on the customer. I'm a bad customer for structured selling, and this is why I don't like to feel controlled. And when I start feeling controlled and manipulated, I get kind of pissed off.

Dave (05:45) So then you must really hate going to the mall.

Kelli (05:47) I hate going to the mall when I'm sprayed with perfume when I walk by or somebody wants to thread my eyebrows, it's like ,get away from me and they jump out at you.

Dave (05:59) Okay. So I'm telling you right now, these are not people that they picked up off the street. They were told this is what you do. You go out there and you jump in front of people because we know if you jump in front of people, you will sell more.

Kelli (06:13) I see the person coming. First thing I think is don't make eye contact.

Dave (06:17) Don't look at them.

Kelli (06:18) Don't look at them. And I actually put my hand up like a stop sign. Stay there in your little kiosk. I have no interest in talking to you or hearing any of your spiel. Have a great day. I don't mean to be mean, but no, thanks.

Dave (06:34) Well, once again, these structured selling programs actually do work, even though some people are annoyed. Many, many people respond to it in a positive way and end up buying stuff. So this is all kind of good in one way and weird in another. And I think we need to break it down a little bit. And I want to tell a story about how structured selling actually helped me a long, long time ago.

Kelli (06:59) And what were you selling?

Dave (07:02) I was selling cars.

Kelli (07:03) Oh, boy.

Dave (07:04) So another brief period in my existence and my journey of businesswhere I needed to do something because I didn't have a job.

Kelli (07:14) Did you ever sell anything before attempting to sell cars?

Dave (07:18) Yeah, not formally. I was the one that was always told you have the gift of Gab. You should sell things. And if you hear that enough, you say to yourself, I'm going to give that a shot. And I thought this would be a great idea. So I went and applied for a job as a salesman at a Lincoln Mercury dealership. And this was many, many years ago. I mean, Mercury is not even a brand of a vehicle anymore.

Kelli (07:42) So you weren't selling like, TransAms or anything cool.

Dave (07:44) No.

Kelli (07:48) That's kind of tough on a young guy, right?

Dave (07:50) Yeah.

Kelli (07:51) Selling old geezer cars.

Dave (07:55) Let me tell you, I'm going to tell you this story about the Mercury Bobcat, which couldn't have been a worst automobile ever produced by anybody. And you want to talk about bare bones, one of the things that I learned from a very good sales manager who just got it - understood people, understood sales people. And he aws that gruff, rough kind of guy. But for some reason, I liked him, and he thought that he saw something in me.  His name was Ron. I know his last name.

Dave (08:24) I'm not going to use it on the program, but I would love to because I want to credit this guy with giving me some structure that I used for the rest of my life. And here's what it was. He said, you're going to come in here and you're going to sell cars and you're going to do it my way. And the reason why you're going to do it my way is because you don't know anything about selling yet. You just have a great personality. You're fun to talk to, but you know shit about selling.

Dave (08:51) And I can't teach you how to sell. It's not something that is taught. You either have it or you don't. And how do you know if you have it? You try and other people watch you and you either develop your kind of Feng Shui or you don't. If you don't, you're not a salesperson. Go do something else. Don't even try because there are no training programs to make you better. You have to have something inside you. And he said to bring that out of you, I want you to follow the system that we have.

Dave (09:21) And I remember it so vividly. It was called the Trac system.

Kelli (09:25) And so is Trac system a system that a lot of different car dealerships used or was this their specific system that they developed?

Dave (09:34) No, that's a good question. This was a program that they purchased. They have the statistics from hundreds of dealerships who have implemented them and have the data that shows what it was like before the implementation, what it was like afterwards.

Kelli (09:48) So they had the numbers to back it up.

Dave (09:49) Yes, they have the numbers to back it up. And that's why they buy the program. And that's why they're so insistent that new salespeople and unfortunately, older, more seasoned sales people also follow it. We'll talk about the older, more seasoned salespeople in a minute.

Kelli (10:03) And their reluctance, I would guess.

Dave (10:05) Well, you know, the reluctance is on both sides. The more seasoned sales people actually have a good reluctance toward it and have good reason because they know how to sell. They can read people. But the new salespeople don't have that. And that's true in any business. It doesn't matter if you're selling technology or if you're selling marketing or if you're selling cars or spaceships. Right?

Kelli (10:26) Right.

Dave (10:27) So you need a little bit of help and a little bit of help comes from structured selling. I vividly remember in the structured program called Trac, we would have to list out 26, not 24 or 30, exactly 26 features of every car. And I can tell you if you take a stripped down Mercury Bobcat and you try to find five features that don't include. It has an engine.

Kelli (10:56) It has four wheels.

Dave (10:57) It has a door. Exactly. If you're trying to pick out, it's got a lovely shade of blue paint, though. Back then, there were white walls on tires. Some people don't even remember white walls. It has white wall tires, which clean easily. 

Kelli (11:15) Whether they do or not.

Dave (11:16) Whether they do or not, it's got an AM radio. So you would produce this feature list, and you would go over this feature list one by one with the customer. That was like the first thing that you did. And then you would do this programmed walk around very structured. And if you followed it, it was kind of uncomfortable for you and the customer. But usually the customer would come along for that ride. But the best part of it was the test drive. This is where you're asking some very interesting questions.

Dave (11:49) For instance, you get into the car and the customer is driving. And I remember having to say, John, I'll point out every turn to make as you enjoy your test drive, and you were required to say that.

Kelli (12:04) Yeah, because it's the controlling thing.

Dave (12:07) Well, you're figuring that out. But until you actually get on the ride, you don't know. But you're right. It's a controlling thing. And you'll see in a minute. So we would say you're going to want to turn right here and up at the light, make the left, even if it was obvious that that was the direction you use these words all the time.

Kelli (12:25) And why?

Dave (12:26) Well, you'll see in a minute. But let's continue on with the test drive.

Kelli (12:30) All right.

Dave (12:31) So you're going down the road and suddenly you ask, will there be anyone else helping in the selection of color or trim?

Kelli (12:37) In other words, is there someone at home that you have to get permission from to buy this car?

Dave (12:44) Exactly. Do you have to ask the boss, are you in control? Who am I dealing with here? And if they said yes, I need to show this to my husband or I need to show this to my wife. Your answer was, where are they? Let's go now.

Kelli (13:01) But, you know, really, that is a really eloquent way of saying that without being insulting to the customer. I think it's brilliant, actually.

Dave (13:11) And as a result of that, it actually worked. And you got good information out of it. But to answer your question about why explicit driving instructions after the test drive was all over, you would say as you're pulling up to the dealership. Okay. Make a left into the parking lot. And of course, they would drive in, and then you would shut up. You wouldn't say a thing. They'd be stopped and parked, not parked, just stopped. Like what's next?

Kelli (13:35) Right. Because they're used to you giving them directly.

Dave (13:37) Exactly. And what do you think they would ask.

Kelli (13:41) Where do you want me to park?

Dave (13:43) And what do you think the response was? Park it in the sold line, the trial close. I sold cars as a result of that. And I also learned how to sell as a result of that structured selling.

Kelli (13:57) I think likely there are ways to implement this in different businesses and even technology, making it more customer friendly. Not so obvious. That okay. We're trying to rope you in and put you through steps one through seven. And then we are hoping that you react us in a certain way. I think it could be a smoother, more transparent process with the same outcome.

Dave (14:25) Yes, that is true. And what I'd like to suggest here is that you implement a structured system that's not quite as rigid. You can implement this in a checklist format and I'll give you some examples. You always want to identify if the customer should be your customer and you'll come up with your own ways of being able to figure that out. It should be mandatory that you fill that information in for the record of the sale. Is there any reason why the customer could not buy from you?

Dave (14:58) Discover that early and there are questions that you can ask and techniques that you can use to be able to qualify that. Have you qualified the customer to the business's unique criteria?

Kelli (15:09) So are you using something like BAND? Does the customer have a budget? Do they have the authority to buy whatever you're selling? Do they have a need for your product or service? And is there a timeline that they need your product or service by exactly.

Dave (15:24) So that's a very common way of being able to sort of qualify your customer. This should be on the checklist. Also on the checklist should be identifying what the main problem is, or some people call it the pain point. What are you trying to solve for the customer? How does your customer perceive value? How do you know what you're providing to the customer is going to be of value to him or her? Another one is, can we deliver our standard offering, or is this custom? Because that changes the whole routine of how the actual product or service gets deployed into the customer's hand and how revenue can be recognized?

Dave (16:01) And does the deal appear to fit our margin program?

Kelli (16:05) The bottom line is you need to make some dough, right?

Dave (16:09) You can't be giving away the store and you've got to have some checks and balances. Now, the reason why I gave this checklist out is because if I'm in sales in a management capacity and one of my sales people came to me to discuss a deal, I would ask these questions so I could understand better the dynamics of this particular sale. You may not have people in the organization that are asking these questions and you should. It's part of reporting. It's part of quality improvement.

Dave (16:37) It's part of sales training.

Kelli (16:40) This is how we approach our customers. This is the information we feel is appropriate to gather before making our sale.

Dave (16:49) There's another customer service scripting that you've likely heard of - the annoyed at call to your cell phone provider with an issue.

Kelli (16:57) And if you're lucky enough to ever get a real person on the phone, you can tell they are reading from a script.

Speaker 3 (17:05) Thank you for contacting Dewy Cheetah And how today.  You just told me that your service is impaired?

Kelli (17:11) No. I told you that my service is completely off.

Speaker 3 (17:15) Yes, ma'am. With impaired service, your experience will not be as good as you'd like. My name is Pat. I will help you today. May I place you on a brief hold for less than two and one half minutes while I access your records?

Kelli (17:28) I've already been on hold for 80 minutes with you. I've had it. I'm done. Put me on with a supervisor.

Speaker 3 (17:35) Yes, ma'am. I am the supervisor. Is there anything else I can do for you on this beautiful Saturday afternoon?

Kelli (17:42) Yes. You can go (bleep)  yourself.

Speaker 3 (17:44) Thank you for choosing Dewey, Cheetam, and Howe. Would you mind holding on for a brief 18 question survey about your excellent experience today?

Kelli (17:52) Slamming the phone down!

Dave (17:54) Yeah. Do you think those scripts work?

Kelli (17:56) I do not think they work because there's no personal connection there. You can tell somebody's reading questions or responses from a piece of paper.

Dave (18:05) Sorry, folks, scripts work.

Kelli (18:08) This is interesting to me because I haven't thought about this before, but I have found the chat function is more in tune with how I like to communicate, and I think it's because I'm in control now, and it's not as scripted, even though it might be to me, it doesn't feel that way.

Dave (18:30) So that's one type of sales approach, and that is the scripted approach. There are also more sophisticated sales enablement programs. If we believe that you cannot train somebody inexperienced to be a salesperson, you certainly can train an experienced salesperson to do things better. Solution Selling is a common term, and it's a program that concentrates on exploring value in a programmatic way, but not in one that sounds fake. But these programs are tuned up programs. They should only be considered when you have a stable and working sales platform.

Dave (19:08) And I've always believed and taught that friends buy from friends and you should try to make your prospect or your customer your business friend. You will find that it's much easier to go through the checklist and explore value on both sides without making it sound programmatic and friends trust each other.

Kelli (19:28) I think that's an important part when you have a relationship or you even feel like you're creating a new relationship, a certain trust and a little bit of bonding starts happening. And I think that's a positive thing in the whole experience of buying.

Dave (19:43) Selling, structured selling is actually really good. Taking the personality out of structured selling is really, really bad. So there's a balance in there. Don't be afraid of structured selling. Don't be afraid to put up some guardrails in the sales process in your organization. Nine chances out of ten, it's going to do you good.

Kelli (20:03) What did we learn today about selling?

Dave (20:05) Well, successful selling is important to both the employee, the manager of that employee and to the company, and most importantly, to the customer.

Kelli (20:14) There's no such thing as training a person to be a salesperson. They either have what it takes naturally or not. Forcing someone into a position just because you think they can do it will always result in a failure. But you can take a natural born salesperson and help them hone their skills by employing structured selling techniques.

Dave (20:33) Using structured selling techniques may be right for you, but consider carefully how your customers react to it, how it can affect your reputation and how structured it really needs to be to work well for already stable and effective sales teams.

Kelli (20:47) Adding sophisticated sales training for seasoned sales professionals can make a huge difference in performance, but these programs only work when you're in tune up mode.

Dave (20:57) Yeah, right. They do not work to fix a broken selling system that really needs a true revenue master, a Ninja who has the latitude to influence all the aspects of the program, from marketing to product to selling strategy.

Kelli (21:12) Do you have comments?  We'd love to hear from you.

Dave (21:14) Hey, if you like our podcast, please share the fun and tell a friend about us. Just one friend or a colleague who you think would enjoy the podcast as well. Thanks very much for listening today.

Kelli (21:25) Check out our website. It's easy. Myjobhereisdone.com.

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