What is a Cargo Cult? Well, after World War II anthropologists discovered that an unusual religion had developed among the islanders of the South Pacific. It was oriented around the concept of cargo which the islanders perceived as the source of the wealth and power of the Europeans and Americans. This religion, known as the Cargo Cult, held that if the proper ceremonies were performed shipments of riches would be sent from some heavenly place. It was all very logical to the islanders. The islanders saw that they worked hard but were poor whereas the Europeans and Americans did not work but instead wrote things down on paper and in due time a shipment of wonderful things would arrive. The Cargo Cult members built replicas of airports and airplanes out of twigs and branches and made the sounds associated with airplanes to try to activate the shipment of cargo. Members of the Cargo Cults confused coincidence with causality.
Sales people do the same thing. Of course, few salespeople build planes from branches but they have rituals based on their past and these rituals have nothing to do with the buyer they are sitting with currently. Some salespeople have “lucky socks” others a “lucky tie” and while those are clearly not tied to their sales success, neither are many of the presentations, talk tracks and demos that sales people rely on to convince their customers to buy.
There is a large body of research available regarding what keeps prospects from buying. The two biggest reasons cited for not doing business with a salesperson is “they don’t understand my business”, the second biggest problem is “they just wanted to sell me something”. Unfortunately for salespeople these problems cannot be solved with ties, socks, demos or slide decks.
What compels people to buy?
People buy for their reasons. And they are not going share their reasons when the sales person is talking. In order to succeed sales people need to have three specific things prepared.
First, the salesperson needs to have strong empathy and curiosity to discover the prospect’s story and to have an actual conversation about the prospect’s goal and vision of a solution to their problem. Second, salespeople need to have structured and focused questions that lead to prospects discovering that their problems can be solved by the salesperson’s product or service. Finally, salespeople need to have third party success stories planned to tell their prospects. The stories should be all about the problems their clients had the decisions they made and the results they got.
The problem with empathy, questions and third-party evidence is that while they work they require preparation, rehearsal and possibly revision. The things a salesperson needs to succeed are the result of hard work, put in long before a sales call.
Awed by the cargo that seemed so wonderful, South Pacific Islanders built planes from twigs and hoped for the best, but they never bothered to learn about factories, design engineers and distribution channels. They were pretty sure the planes would grant them magical cargo without work. Awed by salespeople that seem to always have leads, make sales and cash big commission checks, too many salespeople fall back on gimmicks like socks, ties, slide decks and demos. They never bother to learn about question strategies, structured curiosity or the value of third-party validation.
Ready to build a sales process that runs on science not hope? We should talk Matt Nettleton, Sandler Training DTB, 317-678-8800 or matt.nettleton@sandler.com
