In today\u2019s selling environment, authenticity is the most important virtue salespeople can demonstrate \u2013 even if it means showing your hand earlier than you would in a poker game.<\/p>\n
The old world: one-way flow of information from seller to buyer<\/h2>\n
In past versions of the buyer-seller relationship, salespeople largely controlled the flow of information. Buyers were forced to depend on salespeople to provide the details they needed to make their purchasing decisions \u2013 everything from pricing to product specs to customer evidence<\/a>.<\/p>\n The old world of sales was akin to a high stakes poker table where buyers and sellers wore dark sunglasses and headphones to avoid tipping their hand. Negotiations were disjointed, trust ran low, and oftentimes, these processes resulted in either buyer\u2019s or seller\u2019s remorse.<\/p>\n “The old world of sales was akin to a high stakes poker table”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you\u2019ve tried shopping for software in the last two decades, you\u2019ve likely experienced the old world of sales. As a buyer, you were probably greeted by a message along the lines of:<\/p>\n \u201cInterested in our product? Please fill out this contact form, and a sales rep will reach out to you in the next 5-10 business days.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n That was the status quo \u2013 buyers were expected to hand over a laundry list of details about their business without any insight into crucial questions like:<\/p>\n As a sales professional, I understand how this information disparity benefits salespeople by increasing their control and leverage in a deal. It\u2019s the same advantage you have in poker when an opponent is blind to your hand, and you\u2019re able to exploit the situation for your own benefit.<\/p>\n “Bluffing is fun in poker but less so in business”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This one-sided relationship has always made me uncomfortable. In the old world of sales, customers were effectively at the mercy of salespeople, making questions like \u201cIs the sales rep telling me the whole story?\u201d or \u201cAm I getting a good deal?\u201d impossible to answer. Bluffing is fun in poker but less so in business.<\/p>\n The good news for crappy poker players like me is that the buyer-seller dynamic has changed dramatically in recent years. We\u2019ve gone from buyers and salespeople holding their cards close to the chest to both parties laying them out on the table. This is largely due to a couple factors:<\/p>\n These three shifts in the buyer-seller dynamic capture what I believe are the core differences between the old world of sales and the new one that we work in today: “We need to deliver something beyond product information and walkthroughs to add value”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In my experience, we have to start with being authentic \u2013 that is, dropping our poker face in favor of a welcoming smile. Today\u2019s buyers expect candid and transparent conversations, and as salespeople, our goal should be to build a mutually beneficial partnership with our customers. Becoming more transparent as a salesperson may be uncomfortable at first, especially if you were taught to keep your cards close, but what you stand to gain from being transparent and authentic is worth this discomfort.<\/p>\n When I first started writing this post, my wife Margaret asked me, \u201cHow does someone be more authentic?\u201d She brings up a good point \u2013 you can\u2019t go in front of a room of sales reps and instruct them to be more authentic in how they sell. Authenticity is hard, if not impossible, to measure because it\u2019s inherently subjective. In the famous words of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart<\/a>, \u201cI know it when I see it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn the famous words of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, \u2018I know it when I see it\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Even though authenticity is subjective it’s a crucial element to building trust in any relationship, especially the one between you and your buyer. Their perception of your trustworthiness determines what information they share, how honestly they talk about their concerns, and how willing they are to take a leap of faith for you. If you\u2019re selling a transformative solution to a company that\u2019s new to your space, that\u2019s what buying your product will feel like \u2013 a leap of faith.<\/p>\n What’s the best way to sell authentically? Start by acknowledging your own limitations as a salesperson. Recently, a member of my team and I spent time with a group of seasoned customer support specialists looking to transition to live chat support<\/a>. In a meeting, one of their senior managers asked me for my advice on setting up Intercom. While I\u2019ve worked with and sold to numerous support teams, the reality was the person asking this question had way more experience in the field than I ever will. Admitting when you don\u2019t have all the answers can feel counterintuitive as a salesperson. After all, you spend so much time perfecting your sales pitch<\/a> to highlight your product\u2019s strengths. But when you think about this dynamic on a personal level, it makes sense. Like everyone else, buyers appreciate authenticity \u2013 your self-awareness makes you human and credible.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to talk a good talk about being authentic in sales. It\u2019s a lot harder to make authenticity part of the way your sales reps actually go about selling the product. Here are a few ways we\u2019ve brought this principle into our everyday work at Intercom.<\/p>\n Building a culture of transparency needs to start at the leadership level if you want it to cascade through every part of the organization. At Intercom, transparency is at the heart of how we operate<\/a>. In meetings, for instance, there\u2019s an expectation that we will honestly and openly discuss what\u2019s working, what isn\u2019t, and what our strategy is moving forward. None of us are infallible, and we strive to learn from our mistakes just as sincerely as we celebrate our wins.<\/p>\n “We strive to learn from our mistakes just as sincerely as we celebrate our wins”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n When embraced across the company, this kind of candor carries through to your customers. With a culture of transparency in place, sales reps no longer feel the pressure to flub their way through product gaps or hide from misses in prior engagements. It becomes okay to acknowledge strengths alongside weaknesses and ultimately, that helps everyone, from the rep to the customer, get to the right outcome faster.<\/p>\n Imagine this situation: you\u2019re working with a new buyer and instead of tiptoeing around hard questions, you\u2019re able to provide honest answers about your solution. How much faster would you be able to answer the question, \u201cShould we continue working together?\u201d How many poor-fit customers would you be able to disqualify upfront? How many more deals will your sales reps\u2019 close now that they\u2019re focused on the right customers? That\u2019s what embracing a culture of transparency can do for your sales team.<\/p>\n On a tactical level, for salespeople to deliver differentiated value in this new world of sales, they need to follow a few \u201cTrue Norths\u201d to guide their efforts.<\/p>\n The way people buy has changed dramatically, and while you can be both a great sales rep and a stellar poker player, it\u2019s no longer a requirement for the job. Instead, what\u2019s vital to your long term success as an individual and as a business are authenticity and transparency. So, encourage your sales team to embrace weaknesses in the same way they celebrate strengths and to be authentic in the way they sell. Show your hand early and often with customers, and remember: great partnerships are built on trust, not bluffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To succeed in a crowded and competitive market, salespeople need to lay their cards out on the table. Trust, not bluffs, is the currency of this new world of sales. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":21765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"category":[1],"tags":[16667,3198,3319,586],"coauthors":[15189],"class_list":["post-21750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-b2b-sales","tag-saas-sales","tag-sales-advice","tag-sales-strategy"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
The new world: two-way dialogue between buyers and sellers<\/h2>\n
\n
\n![\"Old](\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/old-world-new-world-sales.jpg\")
\nGood salespeople periodically ask themselves, \u201cAm I delivering value to my customers and my company?\u201d In this new world of sales, how we deliver value has changed considerably. We\u2019re no longer the only credible and convenient way for buyers to learn about solutions to their business problems and whether or not a product is right for them. Now we need to deliver something beyond product information and walkthroughs to add the kind of value that will differentiate us from our competitors.<\/p>\nWhat authenticity means for salespeople<\/h2>\n
\n![\"Having](\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Authentic-sales-conversations.jpg\")
\nInstead of immediately advising them on their team\u2019s ideal setup, I began by acknowledging my customer as the domain expert on this topic. I asked their team to describe their customer promise and their vision for this project. What ensued was a lively discussion about how they’d like to set up Intercom and the workflows needed to achieve their goals. By level setting with them, we were able to drive to better solutions than we would have if I had pretended to have all the answers.<\/p>\nHow we bring authenticity to the sales floor<\/h2>\n
Embrace a culture of transparency, from the top down<\/h3>\n
Deliver value to your buyers first, then sell your product<\/h3>\n
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Show your hand, early and often<\/h2>\n