The Real Challenge of Selling

June 7th, 2010

David Sandler once said that the real challenge of selling was the ability to relate the unrelated. By that, he meant being able to relate the appropriate aspects of your product or service to your prospect’s situation when the connection is not obvious based on the prospect’s perception of the situation.

Why wouldn’t the connection be obvious? In some cases, the prospect just isn’t aware that your product or service, or some aspect of it, is relevant to his situation. In other cases, the prospect isn’t aware of the true nature of his situation. He sees what unfolds in front of him; he views his situation, problem, or challenge as it presents itself today. He doesn’t see the underlying conditions that create or contribute to the problem – the elements that your product or service addresses. Without the awareness, the connection is not immediately made.

For example, you are a sales rep for a paint manufacturer. You’ve been contacted by a contractor for a quote on a significant quantity of a particular type of paint for a large project. He made it clear that he was under pressure to keep the costs down, and he needs you to sharpen your pencil to reduce prices as much as possible.

By relating materials costs to overall project costs, the contractor’s apparent solution for keeping the project costs in line is to obtain rock-bottom pricing on materials. No one can argue with that logic. However, using your product and industry knowledge and “relating the unrelated,” you propose a more expensive paint.

Your company manufactures a specialty paint that in addition to meeting the contractor’s quote request requirements, dries in less than one-half the time of the paint specified, thereby allowing subsequent coats to be applied sooner. Even though the paint you suggest costs a bit more than other paint you could quote, the savings to the contractor of not having to pay painters to stand around and literally watch paint dry would more than offset the added purchase cost and help the contractor meet his job cost objectives. Helping the contractor make that connection between the cost of paint and the “unrelated” cost of labor for applying the paint is what will win the sale.

The more you know about your products and services and the industry in which you sell, the easier it will be to close more sales – especially if you relate the unrelated.

© Sandler Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

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