RETHINKING RETHINKING - Marketo

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C H A P T E R 1 THE ODD COUPLE 7 so on. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is required reading for some sales organizations and is referenced to devise selling strategies. Trite phrases are passed along in sales meetings that show blatant disrespect for buyers. The implication is that not only can buyers be manipulated, but they should be manipulated! Some typical phrases: “Selling begins when the buyer says no.” “Buyer objections are selling opportunities.” “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” “Don’t confuse the sell with the install.” “Selling is learning the ABC’s: Always Be Closing.” These attitudes and approaches contribute to the fact that for the last several decades, the buyer-seller relationship has been at best strained, and at worst broken. Contrary to common belief, salespeople are not entirely responsible. It may be in retaliation for having been “wronged” in the past, but there are occasions when buyers manipulate salespeople. One example is inviting sellers to bid on RFPs that they have virtually no chance of winning, yet that they will have to invest a lot of their time and their companies’ resources to respond to. The sole purpose of soliciting these bids is for buyers to gain negotiating leverage with the vendor that wired and will almost certainly be awarded the RFP. When asked, buyers tell other salespeople: “This RFP is wide open. Whoever has the best offering will win. If you can get your foot in the door, there are many upcoming requirements. We’ve heard good things about your company and look forward to seeing your bid.” Buyers suffer no pangs of regret when they lie to salespeople. Turnabout is fair play. Through the years, buyers of business-to-business (B2B) offerings and services have controlled the beginning and end of sales cycles. Buyers decide whether or not they are willing to meet with or take a phone call from a salesperson. When issuing an RFP, the vendors that can bid are by invitation only. Buyers also control the purse strings by deciding whether to buy and then selecting which vendor at the end of the buying cycle.
8 R E T H I N K I N G T H E S A L E S C Y C L E Perhaps because they resent this control, sellers display some of their most aggressive and obnoxious behavior in these two parts of the buying cycle. They are persistent in trying to gain access despite obstacles (gatekeepers, unreturned voice mails, and so on). To buyers, these efforts may appear more along the lines of stalking than of prospecting. Sellers also have a reputation for saying whatever is necessary to get prospects to part with their money at the end of the sales cycle by utilizing high-pressure closing techniques. The Quest for Control Despite these conflicting agendas, there is one area where buyers and sellers can agree. When asked to define selling, even though the parties are on opposite sides of the desk, they use the same words and phrases. Their descriptions include elements of conflict or confrontation: • Convincing • Persuading • Handling/overcoming objections • Manipulating • Haggling We’re not sure how this definition came to be, but unless one or both sides modify their views and behavior, buyer-seller relationships aren’t going to change anytime soon. Later in this book, we’ll offer an alternative definition of selling that can be a first step in reducing buyer-seller tension, but for now we hope you agree that the lines are clearly drawn. Buyers view selling as something that is done to them rather than for or with them. The predictable result is that buyers don’t like to be sold and prefer to avoid talking to new salespeople. Until recently, however, when con-
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RETHINKING RETHINKING - Marketo

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