By Elizabeth Hilla
Whether or not you make a commission directly off your sales, your success depends heavily on the recommendations you make to your customers. Your customer already knows you want to sell them new or more products – that’s your job, after all – but if you make that your sole mission, you’re creating a tug-of-war from which they will want to pull back.
If your ultimate objective is getting a customer to do business with you, the sales pitch you present will inherently carry some form of tension due to the back-and-forth nature of your negotiation. And if there’s tension when you sell, explains Tom Stanfill, CEO, ASLAN Training & Development, a prospect will focus solely on that tension and not the truth of the message you are trying to convey.
But what if you could remove that tension entirely?
Stanfill explored many challenges sales reps face just getting through the door of a prospective customer’s business during HIDA’s recent “Accessing the Decision Maker” AMS webinar. But what stuck with me most was his suggestion for what to do after you’ve successfully navigated your way into a sales pitch: a strategy he refers to as Drop the Rope®.
What is Drop the Rope?
By simply “dropping the rope” entirely, you eliminate any tug-of-war situation that can occur with prospective customers. Stanfill outlined three steps to show customers that negotiation tension does not exist and that they have the freedom to make their own choices:
- Identify all the paths your customer can take. Selling is not defined by black or white decisions. You may think your customer only has one choice to make – buying your product or not – but there are always shades of gray that offer multiple options or can lead to follow-up calls. Show your customer that their options can include changing nothing, making a slight change, or making a significant investment, and you already remove the tension that accompanies a “yes/no” decision. Maybe the timing isn’t quite right and your customer doesn’t want to buy anything at that moment, but they still value your product knowledge. That’s certainly more of a “no, but” choice rather than a flat rejection and can be treated as a future opportunity.
- Justify why all the paths identified are in the customer’s best interest. Sales reps often believe there is an art to finding the right balance between being too aggressive and too passive when selling. But Stanfill suggests being open and honest about the benefits of each option you present, allowing your customer to have the freedom to choose on their own and not to feel as if you are pushing them toward any particular decision. Regardless of whether you think their decision is the right choice, you’ve already succeeded by eliminating any tension associated with passive/aggressive selling.
- Be bold when communicating all options are acceptable to discuss and explore. At the end of your pitch, it may become evident that it makes more sense for a customer not to choose your company or product. And that’s okay! As long as you communicate that any option you’ve given is acceptable, you will keep your motives transparent and remove any tension there could be with their decision. Customers appreciate when you drop the rope by laying your cards on the table. They may not buy from you in this instance, but they will certainly remember and value your sales approach the next time you have an opportunity to offer your services.
Customers will resist any effort you make to sell when their right to choose is not respected, even if it’s in their best interest to buy from you. The next time you call on a customer, drop the rope to remove the tension and see if this leads to more sales success.