Mastering Sales Conversations with Customers

We’re all familiar with the stereotype of the over-the-top, pushy, unscrupulous salesperson. They’re always in selling mode, always hustling, always doing whatever it takes to close the deal and win at all costs, regardless of whether they’re actually addressing (or even understanding) the customer’s needs. There’s no real sales conversation or dialogue. All that matters is squeezing out as much money as they can as fast as they can before they move on to their next mark.

Most sales leaders today recognize this isn’t a sustainable way to develop business and cultivate a long-term customer base. Buyers can detect the hard sell from a mile away, and that overbearing pushiness only ends up pushing customers to the competition while leaving the company’s reputation tarnished.

It’s certainly progress that more people recognize this isn’t what effective sales conversations are all about, but now we’re seeing a new issue. Too often, salespeople are replacing the hard sell approach with a generic scripted one. They start with some general assumptions and then they switch into autopilot, running through all of the selling techniques, talking points and product features and benefits they’ve memorized in training courses and from marketing and product support materials.

These salespeople may not be behaving in a cartoonishly “salesy” manner, but they’re still not connecting and engaging with customers in a meaningful way — and that’s because this kind of sales conversation still isn’t really about the customer; it’s about the salesperson getting through their pitch so they can get that deal.

Today’s buyers are not only are turned off by the relentless sales talk, they’re also more informed than ever. They don’t have the time, patience or need for an information dump or a one-size-fits-all product pitch. In an age of chatbots and artificial intelligence, engagement with customers is more important than ever. It’s the very reason the salesperson is so vital to the sales equation. Generic product information is easy to find. Much more elusive is someone who’s done their homework and is genuinely interested in uncovering what your needs are and working with you to find the best solution to address them.

The difference a salesperson brings to the table is their ability to connect, understand and, critically, listen to the customer. This is why, along with strong purpose and aligned values, beliefs and attitudes, success in sales ultimately comes down to the conversations salespeople have with customers.

The Sales Conversations That Matter

Buyers need sales conversations. But they need sales conversations that help them buy, not sales conversations that help the salesperson sell. After all, sales is about creating buying decisions that are in the customer’s best interests. And one of a successful salesperson’s most powerful tools to do that is how they communicate — and the specific word choices they make in sales conversations. That’s an important distinction and, for many reps, it’s a completely different lens and mindset for approaching the entire sales process. This is about starting with the customer’s challenges and aspirations first, and it helps to understand the two different categories these challenges fall into.

The first is the customer who has identified a need or a gap to fill and now needs someone to help them work through the questions, data and decisions so they can confidently make the right choice. The second customer doesn’t know what they don’t know. They need someone to sit down, listen and help them think through the problem their organization is trying to solve and what the ideal state looks like. This often involves helping them prioritize, change their perspective and come up with ideas they wouldn’t have considered on their own.

Both of these customers need a salesperson who can engage in a high-quality, human-to-human conversation with them, and you can’t do this by reciting a script. Likewise, automated responses and digital assistants have their role, but they don’t replace a person who has the ability to listen and bring creative insights to the table, insights that deliver more value to the customer and also make their company’s solutions stand out. 

This has always been the case, but it’s especially true now, when so many sales conversations happen virtually and time is at a premium.

Upgrading Sales Conversations With Customers: Where to Start

Often salespeople get frustrated when the customer keeps asking for more data or won’t make a decision or seems scattered in their attention or any of a number of behaviors that seem completely at odds with what the salesperson was expecting. In fact, these behaviors are all clues to how the person prefers to communicate.

Successful salespeople understand that there are as many different sales conversations with customers as there are customers themselves. They use this to their advantage by approaching every conversation with the uniqueness of the individual in mind and adapting their communications to the customer’s preferred style of interacting. Doing so builds trust, puts the other person at ease, gets them more engaged in the conversation and allows them to buy in the way they want to buy.

The Behavior Styles model is a helpful tool that categorizes these characteristics into four distinct communication styles — Talker, Controller, Doer and Supporter. Most people are combinations of two or more styles and in varying degrees, but as a general guide, it can help you uncover those tell-tale clues that will reveal what motivates the customer and how to approach the sales conversation in a way that will make them feel heard and understood.

Of course, the salesperson also has their own preferred style of interacting. Without taking Behavior Styles into consideration, they’re most likely going to sell in the way they want to be sold to, whether or not that aligns with the customer’s preferences. For a more productive sales conversation — one that’s more likely to result in a better customer relationship and, ultimately, more closed sales:

• Understand what your behavior style is.
• Look for clues to identify the customer’s behavior style.
• Adapt your conversations for each unique sales encounter.

The Role of a Customer-First Sales Process

When you only have a few minutes or even seconds to capture the customer’s attention and make a connection, you can’t leave the conversation to chance. It doesn’t matter if you’re brand new to sales or have years of experience under your belt, every salesperson requires a disciplined sales process they can rely on. A process is what gives you the freedom to be present in the moment and the confidence to know where you want to take the conversation and how to move it in that direction.

There are many sales processes available. The best ones are built around how people engage with one another, from first impressions to a trusted relationship. The best ones also reinforce a customer-focused mindset so that the salesperson spends most of their time listening to understand and uncover needs, not just execute a transaction.

Our AIDINC model is a good example of this kind of sales process. Since values and integrity are integrated into every step, they become the rules of engagement. And because each step is essential and provides a roadmap to the sale, the process keeps salespeople on track, whether they have five minutes in a hallway, thirty minutes on a virtual meeting or two hours in a conference room with the company’s top executives.

AIDINC — Six Steps to Better Sales Conversations With Customers

Approach: Establish rapport and break the barriers of preoccupation.

Interview: Identify needs, challenges, and problems.

Demonstrate: Show how your products and services fill identified and agreed-upon needs.

Val-I-date: Prove your claims and heighten trust. (The acronym refers to the “I” in val-i-date.)

Negotiate: Understand and work through problems and concerns.

Close: Ask for an appropriate commitment to action.

Beyond a process, this is a framework for having an organized sales conversation. It can be expanded or compressed like an accordion, depending on the circumstances. And it’s not always linear. There may be times when you go back to a previous step to clarify needs. For example, a negative response at the Close is proof that one or more of the five previous steps wasn’t properly completed.

Crucially, by providing guidelines for time spent talking versus listening, this framework keeps salespeople from falling into the dreaded “show up and throw up” trap of too much sales talk, not enough listening. As we wrote in our book, Listen to Sell, “Listening well is part of a customer-focused mindset that demonstrates values of respect, empathy, and patience. Beginning at step one, you have a chance to differentiate yourself from your competitors by simply using your ears more than your mouth.”

When applied in conjunction with Behavior Styles, AID,Inc allows salespeople to engage their customers more effectively and gain a better understanding of their needs, issues and concerns. That’s how successful salespeople are able to consistently create differentiating value and build long-term client loyalty.

This kind of framework for sales conversations builds incredible confidence because it ensures the salesperson has a game plan at the beginning of every engagement. Stop, start, go back…you always know where you are and can see where you need to go next. At a time when business is fast paced and so much is unexpected, the stability of a tried-and-true process is invaluable.

The Importance of Preparation in Sales

A process is only as good as the preparation that goes into it. Every step of the way requires deliberate preparation and attention to maximize the time spent with the customer. Salespeople who are prepared are able to actively listen and respond to questions and truly engage in a meaningful dialogue. Salespeople who haven’t done the prep work will often end up filling the space with a lot of talking.

Effective preparation takes time and commitment. It’s not something you can just breeze through or do halfway. In the book, we compare it to detective work:

You are looking beyond assumptions and general information that anyone can find. You need clues about what’s happening in an industry, in a business, or even inside a customer’s head. The information may be industry-related, market-related, technical, or anecdotal, such as a case study. But you need enough at your fingertips that’s relevant—each time—for the purpose of the call. As you compile the information, realize that some of it may not make sense until you ask more questions or do more digging.

The better the preparation, the more productive every sales conversation will be, whether it’s via email, on the phone, in a one-on-one meeting or with a group of decision-makers.

Sales Conversations are Great Predictors of Success

The quality and content of the conversations a salesperson has with customers will be among the determining factors in whether they’ll meet their sales goals this year. For this reason, a foundational element of your sales training and coaching should be about working on these sales conversations with customers. Mastering these conversations requires that your team members become acutely tuned in to the humans in the equation, how different personalities affect the success of those conversations and how to make the most of every single interaction.

About the Author

Mike Esterday

Vice Chair

Mike Esterday first discovered his talent for sales when he ranked number one out of 6,000 sales professionals in his...