The 5 Cs and the importance of developing a trusted advisor relationship with prospects

This article was published by one of my partners in France, Finance Innovation, and presents the methodology that I am implementing.

A confession

I have a confession to make. Almost 20 years ago, I was working at Vodafone UK as a product manager for the development and deployment of B2B solutions. It was the explosion of high value-added mobile solutions.

In this role, I had a lot of interaction with the sales teams. And I couldn't help thinking, ‘We develop innovative solutions, these salespeople have the good life even if, at the end of the day, they have no expertise. Do we really need them?’ I also believed in the famous ‘build it, they'll come’.

Later, I set up my own company and had to start selling. Like many professionals, I had no formal experience of sales and, I must admit, no understanding of the human dynamics at the centre of a sales process. So presentations. Demos. Proposals. Clients who tell me ‘it's interesting’. And then nothing... That really did hurt. And I realised that B2B sales were a complex dynamic. Frustrated with my ‘show up and throw up’ approach, where I would arrive and do demos or presentations followed by ‘What do you think?’, I told myself that there had to be a more effective approach. After much training and reflection, I realised that B2B sales was one of the most complicated activities that went against many of what we believe to be the obvious. It is a complex and fascinating activity because it is predominantly based on people, our psychological biases and our emotions.

Emotional vs rational

One of the many problems with B2B sales is that the decisions we make are emotional. And then we internalise them. However, the majority of organisations and therefore of salespeople, those whose job it is or those for whom selling is only one of many responsibilities (what I call NSPs, Non Selling Professionals such as consultants who deliver and sell, Customer Success Managers or freelancers) think that their contacts are rational, Cartesian people. It's not their fault, it's a false truth that we have been told for centuries.

During my recent experience as VP Sales for ‘VC backed’ organisations before launching my own business, in which I help organisations such as those that are members of Finance Innovation, I naturally had many opportunities to see pitches and other presentations from innovative companies. And I couldn't help but be sceptical when I saw founders and salespeople talking about technology, machine learning, AI, data science, SaaS and other aspects that are the variables that decision-makers use to rationalise their decisions. Not to make the decisions. In fact, do you know many managers who get up in the morning and think to themselves: ‘I really need a SaaS solution that manages my unstructured data and a dashboard for (insert technical term here)’? No? Neither do I.

Beyond semantics that are not aligned with buyers' issues, many salespeople have unequal relationships with their prospects; I would even say more “master-servant” relationships. Prospects control the sales process with a whole set of multiple mechanisms that are too long to explain in this brief article. The salespeople of many organisations sorely lack a real methodology based on 5 fundamental pillars, the 5Cs, which they can implement in a systematic way and which enable them to establish a relationship as equals between themselves and the prospect throughout the process, a relationship of trusted advisor.

What are the 5C of Curiosity

1- Communication skills: as mentioned, we live in a Cartesian country. We believe that what is important is maths, physics and science. At school, in primary and secondary education and at university, there is no focus on what the British call ‘soft skills’. Yet good communication, which is a prerequisite for developing this relationship of equals, does not come naturally. There are two important aspects, what the Anglo-Saxons call ‘nature and nurture’. From a ‘Nature’ point of view, it is first of all necessary to know our communication style and to decode that of our interlocutor. To be able to adapt to it and not impose ours on them. From a ‘Nurture’ point of view, it is also important to have a mentality that allows us to focus on the emotional needs of our prospects. The prospective meeting must also be an opportunity for the prospective customer to fulfil their emotional needs, and not for the salesperson to fulfil theirs by talking about their superb product, the numerous references, etc. There is therefore a need to put our ego aside, which is neither natural nor easy. But how often do we see, in prospective meetings, a salesperson who talks twice as much as a prospective customer?

2- Curiosity: We are naturally self-centred. This is a reality and it is only getting worse. In fact, numerous studies show that empathy has been in free fall for several years. Taking an interest in others rather than obtaining a quick reward and asking questions to fully understand their context is not natural. At the risk of taking the easy way out, I point the finger at social networks... And let's not talk about our culture, which tells us that ‘curiosity is a bad thing’. When it is crucial in the role of salesperson. This lack of curiosity is a huge problem for managers. How many of those I talk to share their frustrations with me: ‘They don't try to understand their prospects’. Salespeople therefore need to be provided with a real strategy for asking questions that goes beyond basic frameworks such as BANT. Organisations and their managers also need to review their approach to the professional development of their teams. By training their salespeople on their products, profits, etc., are they not, at the risk of being very direct, transforming their sales force into a product brochure?

3- Control: Because we are among ourselves and can therefore speak frankly, we can recognise that the sales processes are too often controlled by the prospects. How many meetings end with phrases like ‘we need to think about it’ or ‘send me the presentation, we need to study this’. Followed by a prospect who disappears and no longer replies to emails. Yet hadn't they said the presentation was ‘very interesting’? Could it be that the prospects are lying to the salespeople who are telling the truth (I know, ‘shocking isn't it’!). Do you know how long it takes humans to make a decision? Very often, when the prospect says ‘we need to think about it’, isn't it the salesperson who is doing the thinking, while the prospect is already fully convinced? Taking control of a sales conversation in an empathetic and respectful way is not easy, but there are ways of doing things that enable the salesperson to develop this relationship as a trusted advisor. Another important dimension of control is the need for the salesperson to know themselves. For an organisation to improve its sales results, it is essential that the members of the sales team know each other well enough to control their communication style and emotions and to focus on their prospects.

4- Consistency: Before taking off, an airline pilot has a checklist. A set of variables that they constantly check. This is documented and evolves over time. Armies have ‘war games’ to rehearse the modus operandi to be followed in the event of conflict. Athletes who are at the top of their sport constantly take to the field to acquire automatic responses when they are under pressure and have a coach to guide them. Just like airline pilots, sportspeople or armies, salespeople are ‘creatures of habit’. So to be effective, they too need documentation on the best way to react to a particular situation (the Anglo-Saxons have what is known as a ‘sales playbook’) and to rehearse regularly so that they can react correctly under pressure.

5- Courage: Selling is an extremely complicated profession. The sales function is the one where you have to face the most rejection. To manage this difficulty, salespeople, both those dedicated to sales and the NSPs I mentioned above, deploy an armada of approaches that, in reality, work against them. For example, they try to develop a friendly relationship with their prospects rather than the frank relationship of a trusted advisor. One where the salesperson gets the prospect to confide in them and where both parties openly admit that they may have nothing to do together. Or they don't have the courage to ask difficult questions that would allow them to really understand the prospect's situation. Or they find it difficult to pick up the phone for fear of being rejected and find a whole host of reasons not to prospect (a proposal to finish, a CRM to fill in, a cousin to check up on, a coffee to go for, etc.). It is therefore necessary to equip salespeople with a holistic approach, a mixture of habits, mindset and techniques, which enables them to manage these difficulties and perform at their best.

There is no miracle solution or ‘quick fix’, and developing these new habits takes time and effort. The B2B sales training that we set up to help managers improve their sales effectiveness differ from traditional approaches. This ensures that these new ways of working are properly assimilated and the challenges are resolved once and for all.