Why Do Customers Resist My Sales Effort?

Why do some sales men make more sales than others? Why do I find it difficult to sustain a sales encounter to the end? Why is it getting more difficult to sell in an these times? Is it something to do with faith or lack of it or just the application of some esoteric business practices? Why is the top echelon of sales occupied by less than 7% of salesmen while the thousands of others wallow in the class of unsung salesmen?
No matter which of the above questions is troubling you right now, the real issue put in a question format that should really bothered you as a sales man is which class of salesmen you wish to belong: the upper 7% or lower 93% of average and failed salesmen.
The question has become even more urgent in view of the global economic meltdown. Make no mistakes, there will still be job losses in the next year. What relief there appears to be is only a slow down in the rise of unemployment. Every salesman should try and figure out who or what department is usually the first to get the knife. put differently, which departmental budget gets the deepest slash in a economic downturn? The answer is obvious to any one who has sat on any management board like I have in the last 17years.
So every sales man needs to make himself the indispensable part of the organisation. Never mind the butts about being queer. What matters is that you are the soul of the organisation. The secret to making yourself the protected specie in the organisation irrespective of the economic tides and turns id simple: learn to handle sales resistance in the most professional manner. But what is sales resistance?

SALES RESISTANCE
This refers to the sum of customer behaviour which results in delayed purchase (in the hands of the adroit sales man) or failed sales effort (in the hands of an inept or inexperienced salesman).

WHY CUSTOMERS RESIST
1. They need more clarification
2. They have no need for the product
3. They have had previous unhappy sales experiences
4. They want to avoid paying exhorbitant prices
5. They want to explore or use alternative products
6. The salesman is insensitive or has not done his home work well
7. Salesman uses pressure tactics or inappropriate behaviour

UNDERSTAND SALES RESISTANCE
To overcome sales resistance, you need to understand its nature. This is where a lot of sales men get it wrong and remain rooted at the bottom of the sales performance ladder. You must seek to understand the source of the resisiting behaviour in order to solve it profitably.
The first step to take is to understand yourself, your strenghts and weaknesses. In a book to be published in December, I have gone into great details to show the shibboleths which we nurse to our chagrin. If you are able to identify your own shibboleths, then you can deal with them and move ahead of the pack.
Then you will need to understand the decision maker in the organisation in which you are about to sell. Prior sales reconnaissance or surveillance will reveal some things that are hidden the beneath the official veneer of officialese. Try to get behind those and you have your target speak to you as a a partner. (More on this process in a subsequent blog post).
You also need to understand the decision making process. In most b2b situations, committees are involved taking decisions. So the Production manager or any other so called functionary may indeed not be the biggest influence on the purchase decision. Or he may not be the only one. So, you will need to perform the above role a little more by also cross checking what you can find about the other decision makers.
The above steps help to reduce the amount of wasted effort that successful salesmen put into get the sale.
However inspite of the great efforts, customers may still resist your sales advances. I always recommend to my participants to see the resolution process as similar to wooing girl.
Consider, is she in the right mood for your advances? If not what do you do? Can you change her mood? Do you have the lightening touch to turn a pensive and angry lady into a laughing and happy one? Humour is one tool that does it real good. How much fun can you poke at yourself and the situation without inflaming the customer the more? If it seems foolhardy to create fun can you sympathise and offer a relief? This is crucial. It does not matter whether this promotes your immediate sales objective. What is important is that the customer is helped to solved his immediate problem. The salesman earns a social credit that can come in handy in due course.

COMMON SOURCES OF CUSTOMER RESISTANCE

1. Price
2. Inadequate information to make appropriate decision
3. Customer is already using a substitute
4. Customer already is "betrothed" to another supplier
5. Target is not the appropriate person or not even qualified to take decision
6. Company does not have need for the kind of product on sale