It is a fascinating aspect of sales life that the three most important and powerful sales words are hardly ever uttered by salespeople. That is because they don’t usually have to say them. (If they do have to express these words often then it is time to find a better team to work for.)
These three powerful words have nothing to do with ‘sales’ per se, but rather with customers or clients – which reminds me: there are a few really bad words that I have bumped into over a 30 year sales career, and the moment I hear one I cringe and want to press the eject button to leave the room.
Anybody who refers to clients as punters, victims, suckers, chumps, fall guys, soft touches, marks, patsies, fodder, or stupid should rapidly find another career, preferably driving those large trucks that vacuum septic tanks, because his/her/its sales career will not last long. (But on that career’s slide into the sewer, this being will do immense damage to the firm that employs it.)
In fact, there is only one word in the English lexicon that I find more offensive: “consumer”. As in “74.356% of our consumers have nothing bad to say about our innovative sales approach.” Hint: I am not a consumer. A cockroach is a consumer – of pretty much anything. I am a vaguely sentient individual human being that might enjoy an occasional taste or test of your product or service. The moment you call me a consumer you immediately remove my humanity and individualism and consign me to a bucket. I suggest that you take a few hours to read the Cluetrain Manifesto to identify how long your firm is going to be around.
Aah yes, my apologies – those three words from which I momentarily digressed. Let me explain.
Most of our business comes from repeat customers. I am assured by almost every book on sales that I read, it costs a heck of a lot less to keep an existing client than to find and recruit a new one. And our hero – the salestron- usually has an income that fluctuates in line with the number of quality clients s/he looks after.
However, once a client is on board, it is no longer the sales representative that represents the firm, but rather some minion hidden in the technical or accounting department, who has had little training in social skills. This is fine and dandy until the client has a small problem, and it is this point that the entire mechanism goes pear-shaped.
The client (payer of all bills, the source of all things good, AKA Liege*) experiences a minor challenge and contacts the firm for resolution. Our Liege faces a conspiracy designed to ensure that s/he never quite reaches to appropriate person. And when s/he does the fault is blamed on another person, another department, another firm, our Liege’s incompetence, the movement of Saturn in relation to Venus, or infrastructural redevelopment for the 2010 World Cup®.
Our Liege puts down the phone or walks out of the shop never to return – and no matter how exceptional the sales team is at this point, that’s a little more money flowing to a competitor.
The three most powerful words that the minion in the back-office could have said that will ensure the client stays? “I am sorry.”
Admitting there is a fault is the most important thing the client wants to hear. Denying there is a fault is commercial suicide. (I am convinced that Telkom runs courses teaching their staff to deny that a fault exists, despite the total absence of dial tone, which may be why 60% of JSE listed companies (I have read) will change to the new network operator no matter how expensive they are, just out of ‘principle’.)
It’s even better if the “I am sorry” is followed by “I will fix it”. And even better if the “I will fix it” is followed by “right now”.
Interestingly, “I am sorry” is also really useful when we mess up as individuals. Instead of defending ourselves with some spurious, irrelevant counter-argument “What was I supposed to do? / Could any man resist looking? / But you did the same thing last week!” a simple “I am sorry” carries with it tremendous depth and dignity, and is often the only phrase that can resolve a situation.
Since these three words are the most powerful sales argument on earth, get them onto the table real fast, I say.
Peter Carruthers
February 13th, 2007
* feudal lord entitled to allegiance and service