Spamelot and Selling

Last night my wife and I saw Spamelot, a very funny and entertaining show. Spamelot does very well what so many salespeople fail to do. In the first minute, the cast reaches out, grabs you by the throat, gets your attention and holds it for the entire performance. If your salespeople could do that effectively, what would happen to their performance? How do you accomplish this feat?

I’m not a proponent of canned presentations – they’re boring. I hate it when prospects ask salespeople to make a capabilities presentation. Your salespeople are expected to do this and as a result of agreeing to do this, they bore their prospects to death.

My research from evaluating 250,000 salespeople shows that close to 80% of them are making inappropriate presentations. If you think about the salespeople that have attempted to sell you something, you can certainly understand what I mean. Four out of five times, the first several minutes of the meetings tend to be lifeless, boring and irrelevant .

Get your salespeople to talk for only about 30 seconds, quickly highlighting the issues your company can address rather than the products and services you sell. Next have your salespeople ask their prospects what their biggest challenge is. If they can learn to do this they can reach out and get their prospect’s attention in the first minute. They’ll need to be able to ask great questions once they get there though. Which questions should they ask? Get a copy of Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. Read the whole book and then turn your attention to the chapter on getting to 2nd Base and developing your S.O.B. Quality. That will do the trick.