How I Realized That Selling is Just a Bunch of Crap

Those are strong words and probably quite surprising coming out of my mouth but I’ll explain it all.  Earlier this week I was leading another Sales Leadership Intensive and during a break it came to me.

I was emphasizing how important it is to role-play as part of every coaching conversation and that’s when I realized that what I was sharing was a bunch of crap.  I even looked up the quantity required to qualify as “a bunch” and I stick by my use of the word.  Selling is just crap and here is what I mean by a bunch of it.

Consultative approach, strong Relationships, Active listening, and follow the sales Process. CRAP.

But for it to be a bunch of crap, we need more crap, so:

Keep your prospects Comfortable, lower their Resistance, Ask lots of good questions, and use Positioning statements. CRAP.

Challenge your prospects, help them Reveal their problems, speak with Authority, and be Prepared for anything. CRAP.

Establish Credibility, be Rejection-proof, and don’t seek their Approval when asking Probing questions.  CRAP.

Uncover their Compelling reasons to buy, Remain unemotional, be Animated and sell value instead of Price.  CRAP.

Discover Consequences, Relax, and help them Articulate how it impacts them Personally. CRAP.

Calculate ROI, and Anticipate their Pushback.  CRAP.

A big bunch of CRAP.

Don’t worry – I’m not going to write a new book on selling called CRAP Selling.  There are already two well-known sales methodologies that use 4-letter acronyms, like Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling, and Jill Konrath’s SNAP selling.  But if you want a popular sales solution that features both sales process and sales methodology rolled into one, then order my best-selling book on modern selling, Baseline Selling. I promise that there isn’t a single reference to CRAP and after 13 years, it’s still ranked #15 on Amazon.

This video compares Baseline Selling to SPIN Selling, the Challenger Sale, Solution Selling and Sandler.  If you’ve heard about Baseline Selling over the past 13 years and haven’t read the book, listened to the audio book or attended Baseline Selling training, what the heck are you waiting for?  If you aren’t familiar with Baseline Selling, the book is a simple way to start.  And if you’re in sales and you like baseball, you have found a match made in heaven.