saasesforthemaases

Account Manager, West

Settle Our Battle

My coworker and I were discussing our sales approaches. I came from the services world and was the #1 global rep on a 300 rep team. He came from the product world and was a top rep at a publicly traded company. He's in year two doing 140% and I'm in year one and just finished at 70%, but have a great pipeline going into year 2. I asked him why he thinks I didn't do better.

He told me I'm too smart with the client.

He thinks that you have to play dumb in products, pretend to know less than the client, not try to prove anything, and make sure they never think you are smarter than they are as they will never trust you if they sense that.

This flies directly in the face of what I learned about leading the client, challenging methodologies, presenting alternatives, and generally providing more information and intel to a client to help them make decisions. Now I am a bit worried that I am playing off the wrong playbook!

So I'm wondering - is there something about product sales that demands you "dumb it down" and play coy? Or can you roll out a consultative methodology and still win in the product game?

👑 Sales Strategy

☁️ Software Tech

14

15 comments

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funcoupons

WR Officer

11

👑

Matching energy and mirroring is the right approach.

if you’re dealing with a very intelligent CIO, you’ll need to bring your technical A-Game. Acting dumb will lose you respect with someone like that. If you’re talking to someone with less knowledge or with a more passive personality, you’ll need to come in gently and act as a “trusted advisor” more than a shark.

Understanding/reading people and being able to act as a chameleon is such an important skill in sales.

Upper_Class_SaaS

Politicker

3

Account Executive

100% agee with FC here

IndianaShep

Politicker

0

Director of Sales and Marketing

Studies show: it depends.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

5

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

The only thing I'd add to the great comments here is to make sure you don't overcomplicate the sale. Sometimes a simple, straightforward answer to a question will beat a comprehensive explanation. Making your solution/product look complex can turn even a sharp buyer off or at the very least, slow your cycle down.

buckets1

Politicker

3

AE

I’ve seen both approaches work extremely well at my company and I’m in SaaS. Personally I prefer your style but I will dumb it down occasionally if I sense the client likes to feel smart and powerful.

Cordray

Opinionated

3

Account Executive

It’s more of a need to know your audience and how to sell to different prospects. That being said if you go far into the product weeds, you can over complicate things and convey to prospect that you have a complex product. That can be intriguing to some, but most people will start imagining headaches that aren’t necessarily there.

Diablo

Politicker

3

Sr. AE

All prospects are different, I partially agree with him because its very situational. I had many prospects telling me wow I learnt something new from you today. Was I more smart or more informational?

CuriousFox

WR Officer

3

🦊

Mirror the prospect. Some will want to be led, some will want to think they are in charge. Read the body language.

Mobi85

Politicker

2

Regional Sales Manager

All great info here.
The only thing that I will add to the technical portion, if you are giving them all the answers and then not getting the business are you just becoming a technical expert for them and not a solution provider. As others said, there is a time and place to be technical but much of what we do is provide solutions for them and dumbing it down for the prospect to understand the solution may be best.

justatopproducer

Politicker

1

VP OF SALES -US

I’d say read your audience first. Try opening up with a more focused agenda. I like to say I’m not here to tell you how to run your business/division but I can help you overcome the challenges you face with the solution I offer. My goal is to understand those challenges and your future goals and provide a solution now and for the future. Who cares who’s the smartest in the room? They should know more about their business than you do and you should know more about the solution your product/offering delivers and how.
Find some common ground along the way and build off of that. Just my two cents, hope it helps.

saasesforthemaases

Tycoon

2

Account Manager, West

Super helpful thank you. This actually adds a whole new dimension for me. Moving from product to services, you are encouraged to go straight to features and benefits and I think that I have become caught up in that. Services is all about identifying problems and the resolution of that pain problems cause, so I can easily go back to that and probably see more success. Thank you

justatopproducer

Politicker

2

VP OF SALES -US

I look at them the same way. They have a pain, uncover, feature that they will benefit from that provided a solution. Obviously easier said than done, and explaining it in a way that makes sense to your audience. Tell a story about how a current client had the same problem, by taking advantage of your solutions feature they benefits from and now have gained x(ROI). Obviously make it relevant to them and their need. Good luck and happy to help!

godpull54

Praised Answer

0

PDR

Read the book called Power by Robert Greene. Never out smart your master. They're not really your masters but you really never want to come off as better or more intelligent than your prospects it instills insecurity in them.

saasesforthemaases

Tycoon

0

Account Manager, West

Thanks I will do that! BTW, big props to the Bravado community. This has been one of the most helpful threads from anywhere I can remember.

bostonsaasbroad

Good Citizen

0

Senior Commercial Account Executive

No one-size-fits-all here... but I definitely don't want to come off as an idiot to my prospect.

I prefer the teaching method, but in a way that doesn't seem like I'm better than them. It should be a conversation where you learn more about them and their company and then teach them about how what you are offering will hit all the sweet spots.

Build that constructive tension whenever you can to ensure that you are still leading the conversation, while allowing them room to do most of the talking.

The Challenger Method is my jam, dude.

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