Real Estate Strategies That Work
The Behavior of Salespeople: Can it Get Any Stranger? (Part 1 of 2)
We humans are funny animals. We tend to repeat the same behavior over and over, no matter what the consequences. Although we are admonished to learn from our mistakes, more often than not we continue to make the same mistakes time after time. Maybe not the big obvious mistakes, but the little ones that we don’t notice we keep doing and doing. Doesn’t it seem reasonable that, if we’re doing something that has a negative outcome, we’d stop doing it? Even more fundamental, doesn’t it seem reasonable that we’d notice that what we’re doing isn’t working?
But strange as it seems, our lives are full of things that have negative consequences, yet we continue to do them. Some we may be aware of and consciously choose to do anyway, such as smoking, overeating, or taking a tad too many nips of the juice.
Nevertheless, there are whole hosts of actions we take that have negative consequences of which we are completely ignorant. We’re ignorant of these negative-consequence actions not because we’re blind, or stupid, or too lazy to see them. We’re ignorant because we have never examined them to see what the consequences of those actions really are. We do them because we’re “supposed” to do them or because that’s the way we’ve always done it.
Unfortunately, that same ignorance that invests other parts of our lives worms its way into our sales careers as well. We do the things we’ve been told are the right things to do, or we do them in the way we were told was the right way to do them. And when the outcome of those actions isn’t what it’s supposed to be, we blame ourselves or chalk it up to bad luck or bad timing. Worse, we decide the answer is to do more of those actions. If we do them more often and with more conviction, the outcome will definitely be better, right?
Can it get any stranger? Yet, that is how the many salespeople run their sales careers.
Cold calling not working? Make more cold calls. Not closing enough sales? Push for the sale harder. Not meeting enough prospects at the networking events you go to? Go to more events. The direct mail piece you sent not producing results? Send out more. The answer is always more of the same. Do more of what’s not working, and it’ll work. What a strange business we’re in.
Do you think that if the owner of a restaurant decided he wasn’t selling enough fish, the answer would be to cook more fish? Of course not. He would want to know why he wasn’t selling more fish, and he would figure out how to generate more customers who order fish. Or he would change his menu to reflect the tastes of his customers because, if he tries to continue to force fish on his customers, he’ll be out of business.
The restaurateur is not just going to say, “Oh, well. What I’m doing isn’t working so I’ll just do lots more of it.” We’d think they were nuts if that were their answer. Yet, that’s the answer most salespeople come up with when their sales career isn’t progressing in the direction they want. And the strange thing is that few of their associates or their manager think they’re crazy for simply doing more of what doesn’t work. In fact, they are often the salesperson’s biggest cheerleaders, egging them on to do exactly that.
Why would a rational person decide the answer to correcting something that isn’t working is to do more of what isn’t working? There are a number of reasons such as the advice they are getting from their sales manager, many of the sales books they read, or their associates -- all assuring them that what they need to do is make more calls, push harder for the sales, or send out more direct mail pieces. But often the real culprit is that they have no idea what’s working and what isn’t working.
By: Paul McCord, www.eyesonsales.com
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The Daily Communicator