Bonus Episode: Your Outdated Selling Skills, and How to Fix Them

Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the Chief Content Officer at Common Skew. Today we have another special episode. A few months ago, we published a Skewcast episode that I wasn't sure whether it would resonate. The inspiration for this idea came from the show The Daily, produced by The New York Times, which I'm sure many of you listen to. Most days, The Daily produces interview-style episodes, which we will continue to do as well. But on Sundays, they read a substantial article from their archives or a recent article that addresses current events. I read the article, "4 Demands the Client Wants from You Now." Although we produce a lot of written content at community.comandsq.com, as listeners, you don't always get a chance to read the posts. So I thought I would try and occasionally read only those articles that present a substantial idea or a major shift. The response from you was tremendous. Many reached out to me to say thanks for sharing a critical article through the SQCast. One was Michael Walliver from Magellan Promotions based out of Wisconsin. Who emailed me and wrote, I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed the article. I had my team read it and then discuss it as a group as to what changes we can make in our business around the concepts that are described. Thanks for highlighting this during the SkewCast. That's how I learned about it. Thank you, Mike. Since this was helpful to so many, we're back again with another article, and this one is very timely, and it's about the new selling skills required to thrive in the future. And the future is much nearer than we think. Speaking of sales, yesterday we opened registration for a new experience called Common Skew Sessions at Home. Sessions is the industry's only virtual conference solely dedicated to thriving in sales. The virtual experience will be held on Thursday, October 8th, from 2 to 5 PM EST and features a lineup of thinkers who are reimagining the role of selling in the new world of work. Featuring Mike Michalowicz, author of The Pumpkin Plan, Profit First, Surge, and the one who Simon Sinek deemed the top contender for the patron saint of entrepreneurs. Mike will speak on the topic, better is not better, different is better. Darryl Griffin, president of Accolades Inc. Some of you might recall her inspiring message shared at SKUCon. She's ever-evolving and she's back to share a new perspective, the 3 timeless sales secrets to help you thrive through any season. And Danny Rosen, co-owner of Brand Fuel, co-founder of Promo Kitchen. Danny will share Promo Sales 3.0: The New Revolution. And finally, Catherine Graham, CEO of CommsQ, will share insights from Bold Research on the new frontier of selling, how chaos creates a golden opportunity for promo. The conference will also host a new networking experience for all attendees. Net plus working is a one-to-one rapid-fire meet and greet where attendees will take what they learn from the afternoon's teaching and put the tactics into practice right away, all in a safe, encouraging environment of peers that will coach each other on how to improve. It'll be a lot of fun. And what a great way to practice before you have to do so in front of new clients or prospects. Who should attend? Owners, managers, leaders, salespeople, account managers, account directors, marketing— basically anyone who interacts with clients will benefit from this experience. Why should you attend? Sales, as we all know it now, is dramatically changing. And yet with volatility comes opportunity. Now more than ever, we need to refuel, refocus, and reenergize ourselves and our teams to make sales growth a passion again. From new client expectations to building new experiences through promotional products via digital tools, join us as we explore the future of sales and how to harness the radical winds of change into a force to be reckoned with. This event is sponsored by Alpha Broader, and each attendee who registers by September 15th will get to choose a limited edition Sessions at Home Champion Hooded Sweatshirt through the Commonsku shop. You can learn more or register at commonsku.com/sessionsatome. That's commonsku.com/sessionsatome. And now on to our episode featuring an article co-written by myself and CommsQ CEO Katherine Graham. The article includes more research from our Future of Work series, and it's called Our Outdated Selling Skills and How to Fix Them. And if you find this helpful, give us a shout on the socials at CommsQ or email me bobby@commensq.com. Now here's our article. Everything about the way we sell is becoming extinct. Our selling styles, our training, in fact, our whole industry is built on outmoded tools that create passive salespeople. We are reactors waiting to be told what to do, reacting to crisis orders, responding to demands for solutions, following our client's lead, and simply complying with their wishes. We are passengers versus pilots. Now, don't get me wrong, those skills were necessary once upon a time when the industry was composed of salespeople who simply knew where to source products. But our time as finders of product only is over. The client, with a mouse click, can find anything they want. The winners—those who evolve—will become creators. Creating demand. Identifying solutions for our clients before being asked. Leading our clients to reimagine how promotional products can solve problems. Forcing ourselves to the table as experts rather than sourcing houses. Pilots who have a clear mission and the skill to guide clients to success. But in order to do this, we must fix the biggest problem confronting us today: our defunct selling methods. Just how outdated are our selling skills in our industry? In the article "Why Women Are the Future of B2B Sales," Harvard Business Review stated that although women make up just over half of the college-educated workforce, they hold less than one-third of the B2B sales jobs today. Even beyond diversity, which we all know is desperately needed in this industry? Why is the Harvard Business Review claiming that women are the future of successful selling? For the future buyer—think modern buyer—and I quote from the Harvard Business Review, salespeople need capabilities for collaborating with customers and shaping solutions. These capabilities, focused on addressing customer needs, have become more important for sales success than persuasion capabilities such as influencing customers and driving outcomes. And this plays to women's strengths. End quote. These were once known as soft skills in selling. The so-called strong skills, convincing through personality and charm and meeting quotas over the primacy of values and intention, are residual habits left over from the Mad Men world of yesterday. They never really were soft skills. That's just the binary phrase fabricated by a male-dominant sales force. Now, does this mean we should fire two-thirds of our male workforce? No, but it does mean a complete reimagining of our sales team and the skills required to make one successful, plus a radical overhaul of our sales training. If you need more convincing, it's not just one Harvard Business Review article, but study after study reveals that clients are demanding similar key attributes from you as a salesperson. In one recent study produced by Forrester Research, the very first point made about what B2B wants from salespeople is called the seller imperative. Clients demand that you, and I quote, "increase your research skills, become more knowledgeable about challenges and other industries, and demonstrate a deep understanding of the buyer and their needs," end quote. Your ability to know where to source product, how to react in an emergency, and your vast product knowledge are baseline skills. The client assumes you possess these already. What they are telling you is they demand something more. The 4 essential skills you need to work on for a successful future are: number 1, research and inquiry; number 2, empathy and foresight guided by research; number 3, omnichannel fluency—more on that in a minute—and number 4, leadership. But in order for us to do this, let's talk about that big ugly 4-letter word: time. Ask yourself as a salesperson, or if you lead salespeople, ask this about your sales team: How much of your time this week was spent on researching your customer, learning about their industries and new challenges, expanding your knowledge about their infrastructure, and asking the hard questions about their future? 0% of your time? 5% of your time? 10%? And how much of your time was spent sourcing products, preparing quotes, reacting to a crisis, and wrangling with admin details over an order already in play? 50% of your time? 75%? 90%? Those little tasks, the sourcing, quoting, admin work, are the tasks that will make you as a salesperson extinct. If study after study proves that client research, empathy, foresight, and leadership are the primary success factors for the future, which by the way are leading skill sets looking out the front windshield, and you're spending more time on product research, quoting, and admin details, which are lagging skills, rear window view only, you're about to be left in the dust. The new skills require a massive overhaul of how we spend our time because this requires a new skill most of us have yet to develop as promo sales pros: the skill of deep thinking. Cal Newport, in his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, defined the current work that most of us as salespeople are now engaged in as shallow work. Quote, shallow work is non-cognitively demanding logistical-style tasks often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate. End quote. The deep work of research and understanding is the new skill set required today, which is where we must now invest our time. Newport wrote, the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill and then make it the core of their working life will thrive. Omnichannel fluency. Another key skill the Forrester Research study revealed was communication fluency. The study said you must be fluent in every interaction channel that the buyer wants to use to engage, and you must thrive in digital-first scenarios. The Mad Men selling model was built around taking buyer buddies to play golf, after-hour drinks, or delivering donuts to the whole office with a smile. Our sales presentations revolved around the product, passing around soft garments for customers to feel, gushing over the newest, coolest promo toy— goodbye for good, fidget spinner, by the way— or revealing newest, latest products, which is always kind of laughable when you consider that there are nearly a million products in this industry, 90% of which are, quote, "new" to every buyer. I'm not suggesting that product isn't important. It's vital. We are an industry built by product. But we've become product-obsessed to the point that it supersedes solving problems first. COVID, for all its calamity and heartbreak, ushered us into a new era of communication—the era of the video conference call. The buyer has an urgent demand for digital tools that remove friction in the buying process, and moreover, the buyer carries a great deal of uncertainty regarding new problems. COVID isn't the reason for the shift in demand. This demand was growing with buyers, but it is the catalyst that requires us to think differently about how we present ourselves, how we communicate, and mostly which solutions we provide to the client. Virtual meetings will require the salesperson to be more consultative, arrive with answers, and provide real solutions. Think less free donuts and free samples and more ideas. It's just a small example of how salespeople need to think in order to win the hearts and minds of buyers in the future. The future won't all be virtual, but you can bet on this: the stakes for in-person meetings are now higher. And with Zoom fatigue being a real thing, you need to show up prepared to solve and not shill, and earn your client's respect, i.e., time, by providing answers to problems. And finally, within a crisis is opportunity. As the world reawakens from its COVID stupor and the economy climbs out of its temporary coma, Our goal should be to not waste this crisis. We need to see the world as it is quickly changing so that we can become agents of change rather than victims of change. The future salesperson who wins in the new world of work will be the one who makes clients' lives easier. They will lead their clients by finding solutions to problems before they arise. They will arrive for sales calls with intelligent answers to difficult questions, and mostly understand the environment in which their client operates deeply enough to add true value. Crisis, the root word, means a decisive moment, a turning point. It denotes separation and a decision. Be mindful that this moment in history is pivotal for us as salespeople. We can no longer afford to cling to the comfort of old selling habits, or our buyers and the world will pass us by. We should use it to its fullest potential for our own transformation. Thank you for tuning in to another SkuCast episode. We'll be back with a new guest next week. And if you're inspired to radically change your selling skills, join us on October 8th for Sessions at Home. You can register at commonsku.com/sessionsathome.