Boring Salespeople Are 100% Replaceable!

Raising the bar, going above and beyond... What has happened to the "icing on the cake" or "cherry on the top" conversational experience?

As we kick off our time together, let's all reflect upon this quote by Helen Gurley Brown,

"Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking, you are boring somebody."

Are your sales conversations boring? How would you even know?

Are you bringing excitement to your sales conversations? How would you even know?

How are you making people feel during your sales conversations? How would you even know?

Attention to everyone in sales and yes, this includes all sales leaders...

What kind of experiences and conversations are you creating?

To help set the stage a bit more, let's take a moment and pause to review the dictionary.com definition of boring...

• Causing or marked by boredom; dull and uninteresting; tiresome:
• A boring discussion; to have a boring time.

Now, I ask you to think about your clients... What types of conversations are you having with them? What types of experiences are you creating for them?

How would they describe the depth of your conversations with them?

Are you a bit perplexed at this moment?

People... You're in the business-to-business environment, not the boring and too bland world.

In a survey conducted through the American Psychological Association,

"Most people said they wished they had more meaningful conversations in their daily lives. The more time people spend in small talk, in contrast, the more likely they are to feel — well, not much of anything in particular. Small talk is conversation’s purgatory, biding time waiting for the good stuff."

Oh, this is good... How can this be translated and applied to the sales world?

The more time you all spend in small chit chat and excessive rapport building, the more you pigeon-hole yourself into the sea of sales sameness.

I'm all about the chit chat and rapport building, however; I feel one must earn the right. The way you earn the right is to change the conversations you're having upfront with your clients and future clients.

You do this is by bringing education, insights and ideas upfront to the conversation first... call this the conversational appetizer.

When you're willing to change the conversation, you will change the outcome.

How many of you are making your clients yawn? What's even worse, how many are just plain old ignoring you?

At this very moment in time... How many in sales and in leadership would even know if their clients were bored with them?

Are you truly interested in the conversations you're having with your clients? Or are you just going through the so-called "sales motions"?

Boring salespeople and boring conversations put their clients to sleep!

AVOID BEING REPLACED

"Boredom is the root of all evil – the despairing refusal to be oneself."

Soren Kierkegaard

Believe me or not, some of your clients just might be getting lulled into a sense of boredom.

For some, they've been doing business with you for so long that they've become numb to the experience, and they've settled for boring.

Have you ever given thought to the conversational experience between you and your clients?

If the answer is a shrug of your shoulders, then I ask you to seriously take this to heart.

I believe when you bring intentional curiosity and deep interest into your conversations you do not need to mine your mind to come up with random questions to ask.

The conversations flow as you say things such as "tell me more" or "in addition to that, what else?"

Are you embodying interest in the present moment with your conversations?

Are you mentally distracted during your conversations?

Are you too focused on yourself during your conversations?

Simply put, if you struggle to muster up authentic interest in your conversations, they will become dull, mundane and replaceable.

I encourage you to turn your attention and thinking away from yourself and consider all the interesting things you likely may not know about your clients, their business and the long-term health of their company.

Boring salespeople are 100% replaceable.

ARE YOU BORING? WOULD YOU KNOW?

I love this quote by Ved Mehta,

"Surely only boring people went in for conversations consisting of questions and answers. The art of true conversation consisted in the play of the minds."

I question the conversational competence of many in sales.

Conversational competence requires practice, persistence and patience.

Let's have some fun right now...

Boring sales reps sell products. Sales professionals sell experiences.

Boring sales reps believe they really know their clients. Sales professionals dig in and learn as much as they can about their clients.

Boring sales reps have nothing new to add to their clients because their talk is product centric. Sales professionals consistently provide new ideas, new insights and continually strive to help their clients do better business.

Boring sales reps center the conversation around one or two things. Sales professionals lead the conversation taking it into new directions along with new outcomes.

Boring sales reps have a tendency for speaking in long uninterrupted periods of time. Sales professionals share ideas, seek feedback and gain clarity.

Sales professionals breathe life into their conversations.

Innovative, insightful and inspirational sales professionals dedicate themselves to newness.

It's this commitment that keeps their clients coming back for more and referring them more often to others.

BORING SALESPEOPLE FOCUS ON THE TRANSACTION

Boring sales reps focus their attention on simply generating the next sale.

On the flip side, a sales professional focuses on building long-term client relationships.

A transactional mindset and the associated behaviors can be felt by your clients. I promise at some point you'll be replaced by a better transactional conversation.

Boring and transactional oriented sales reps provide no reason for their clients to remain loyal.

How likely will they do business with you again if you continue to deliver a transactional type of experience?

"Boredom is only for boring people with no imagination."

Tim Tharp

Are you putting your imagination to work in your conversations?

Are you bringing anything new to your client conversations?

BORING SALES REPS LACK VISION

Uninspiring sales reps lack vision, clarity and breathe no value into their lifeless relationships.

Sales professionals have an inspiring vision fueled by emotion. This vision lights a fire within their clients that ignites passion, creativity and collaboration.

A consummate sales professional continually evaluates themselves to improve their results and to become better at what they do.

Boring sales reps struggle to clearly define themselves and their vision.

If you are struggling with clearly seeing and casting your vision, then it will become difficult to help your clients navigate to business betterment.

BORING SALES REPS ARE NOT RELEVANT

Boring sales reps wrap themselves up with self-delusional thoughts regarding how much their clients love them.

Furthermore, the relationships that many in sales reps believe they have with their clients is not nearly what their clients believe it to be.

To become relevant, you must understand your client's wants, needs, tensions, desires, and aspirations. You see, uncovering all of this takes some work and dedication.

In today's sales world, relevancy is not an option.

Boring sales reps struggle to answer:

• Am I going the extra mile for my clients?
• Am I proactively serving my clients?
• Am I developing a deep, genuine concern for my clients?
• Am I looking out for my client's best business interest?

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said,

“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.”

To become replaceable is when your role in your client's mind is easily interchangeable with someone else without much fuss or fanfare.

EDUCATE, ENGAGE & EXCITE

In an environment that is becoming increasingly competitive, you must focus on building meaningful relationships with your clients.

This happens through conversational competence.

Let's face it, the business world is changing at rapid rates of speed. And for that matter, so are your client's businesses.

Mastering conversational competence is the antidote to boring, unfulfilled and lifeless conversations.

Let's face reality, your clients have choices.

• You must become genuinely interested in their business.
• You must be on the lookout to help them do better business.
• You must connect with meaning rather than just contacting them to sell them something or waiting for them to contact you.
• You must become exciting and engaging to converse with as opposed to boring and bland.

What are you willing to do to remove the boredom label?

Originally published on Larry Levine's LinkedIn.