Practicing mindfulness in sales

(2 minutes read)

In the last blog (mindfulness in sales) we mentioned how mindfulness could be useful in sales, although it seems to be a woo-woo thing for most of the people in the sales world.

That said, it is also important to understand how you can practice it and what it means for a salesperson. Please note that the methods that I will mention below are based on my personal experiences and we are approaching mindfulness from a “being present in the moment” perspective.

First of all, implementing mindfulness in sales requires a change of mindset and walking away from traditional sales practices and training. You need to start by accepting that the sales process indeed, is the decision-making process of the customer about a buying decision and you cannot always know what is going on in the customer’s mind. Thus, you cannot fully control it. Accepting that fact decreases the selling pressure. It does not make you a great salesperson because you sealed the deal, nor does it make you trash because you missed a great deal. Remember…everything happens in the customer’s mind, and you cannot be responsible for that. However, you can only be responsible for your learning. Focus on how much you learn about(or from) the customer.

The second step comes as a natural result of the first step. We said that it happens in the customer’s mind; then let’s focus on the customer’s buying performance rather than the selling performance. So, it is not about you and your sales pitch, your product, or your company in the first place. It is about the customer. Put the customer at the center of the discussion. Ask questions to understand customer’s business, history, its dynamics, decision-making process, key variables affecting the decision making, etc. This requires a lot of questioning which will make you humbler because you would put your ego (past successes) and your pride (future assertations) aside. Therefore, during your conversation with the customer, you will be the learner rather than the teacher. The more you learn, the better you will perform because it will help you to propose the best solution with the best arguments specific to each customer. Not to mention the quality of the relationship you will build.

The final one is the most difficult one to accept for most of the salespeople because it is counterintuitive. You should be able to convince yourself that you are not here to sell. You are here to help the customer to make the best buying decision even if it makes to lose the deal. Sometimes, it means to propose alternative solutions that do not exist in your portfolio, sometimes it means to prevent the customer from buying your product or service because you see that in the long run it is not the customer’s best interest and sometimes it means that you help the customer to build their technical specs so that they gain confidence about what they really need. This will not make you get every deal, but it will make you a better salesperson every time. 

If we put those points in the context of a customer meeting, here is how it would look like in steps:

  1. Present yourself very briefly
  2. Ask questions about the business of the customer and understand:
    • What the customer values the most (order, quality, productivity, efficiency, proximity etc)
    • How the customer makes profit? (Is it just the difference between the cost and selling price? Is it some additional services they sell? Is it some specific product lines?Is it their brand…?)
    • What is the customer’s focus right now? (A customer who values quality, may not have the budget at that moment and could momentarily compriomise and accept lower quality in exchange of lower price)
  3. Present your solution and other solutions you delivered to similar customers and how it helped them.
  4. Briefly present your company (ideally while presenting your solution)
  5. Talk about your product/service concretely. All sales arguments specific to cutomer, price etc…

To sum up, your job as a salesperson is to help your customer to make the best buying decision by providing 3Cs*. Confidence, Clarity, and Choice.

The more you do it, the more you will learn and the better you will perform as a salesperson.

Do not hesitate to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

*Source: Selling to the Point; Jeffrey Lipsius; Rydal Road Publishing 2016