Customers Love to Buy – Why Do Salespeople Struggle?

  • October 2, 2017
  • Posted by: Dave Kurlan
  • Category: Understanding the Sales Force

I just returned from the local car dealer.

Have you ever noticed how happy people are when they are buying things?  What about you?  How did you feel the last time you took delivery of your new car?  Was it the new car smell?  The finish?  The wheels?  The look?  The brand?  What about the last time you bought a new smartphone, tablet or notebook computer?  And how happy were you when you moved into your house or apartment?  When you installed the swimming pool, bought the boat, renovated the kitchen, painted the house, bought new furniture, the flat screen TV, or a new wardrobe?  Happy buying extends to vacations and even sporting goods.  It never ends!  The excitement from these purchases tends to last much longer than the moments themselves.

So if we all love buying stuff, why do salespeople struggle so much when they try to sell stuff?  Why isn’t it as friction-free as an abundance of happy buyers would suggest it should be?

There are at least 13 reasons for this:

  1. Many salespeople try too hard to sell instead of helping people buy
  2. Many salespeople try to sell stuff that some people don’t want or need
  3. The B2B buying experience is different from the B2C buying experience
  4. Many salespeople and customers don’t have the same goals
  5. Many salespeople put their own interests ahead of those of their customers
  6. Many salespeople don’t know how to lower their customer’s resistance
  7. Most salespeople are predictable and obvious and their customers hate it
  8. Most salespeople don’t know how to have a real conversation about issues and the impact of those issues
  9. Most B2B salespeople don’t know how to make the B2B conversation personal and fail to get their business customers to the happy place that consumers get to
  10. Most salespeople are absolute amateurs when it comes to the consultative approach to selling, the only approach that makes it personal
  11. Most salespeople aren’t able to sell value with any degree of effectiveness so the buyer-seller conversation ends up focused on price
  12. Most salespeople don’t take the time to develop relationships
  13. Salespeople are ineffective at getting and setting realistic expectations

There are more reasons but I’m equally sure you get the gist of this.  How can you make the B2B experience more pleasant, helpful, personal and value-based and less about your goals and needs, which raise resistance?

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