Happy that he had just landed a lucrative sale, Bill Harland, an experienced construction equipment salesman, grinned with pride as he thanked his customer for the order.

“How will your new loading equipment fit my new trucks?” the customer asked.

Bill’s jaw went slack, the smile faded from view and amazement replaced his owner-of-the-world grin. “What trucks?” he asked.

“Why, the four new ones we added to our fleet just last week. I assume you people don’t have a truck line, right?”

Bill gasped. “Well, I guess we never had a chance to talk about this. I assumed you had a fairly new fleet. We’ve carried trucks for over a year…but it never occurred to me you’d be needing additional capacity. I thought I’d tell you about our truck line when it came time to replace some of the older ones…”

A Lost Opportunity

Although he was an experienced salesman, at this point Bill Harland realized that he had miscalculated the customer’s needs and lost the opportunity to make a much larger sale.

This sales story is true. The salesman’s account of one of his biggest mistakes reveals how salespeople become complacent, how they become victims of assumptions about their customer’s business.

You must counteract the natural tendency to make assumptions that can cost you sales. Here’s what you can do to help salespeople become more task-oriented.

Let’s begin by looking at the two most common assumptions salespeople tend to make about buyers.

Assumption No. 1: “I know the buyer. Therefore I can take some shortcuts in my sales presentation.”

Salespeople who claim to know their buyer have stopped learning about selling. When you hear one of your salespeople say, “I know my customer’s likes and dislikes. I can even predict some of his answers to my presentation,” you can be certain that the sales presentation is made to fit the salesperson’s assumption of the buyer and not reality.

What’s worse, the salesperson’s shortcuts stimulate buyers to respond with shortcuts of their own: “Spare me the details. I know what you’re selling. Just tell me how much it costs and what discount I get!” Many salespeople tend to interpret this response as a buying signal and move quickly to the close.

They thus omit the most important part of the call — selling customer benefits.

These shortcuts may not always amount to losing the sale, but chances are the salesperson could have sold at a better price, could have obtained a larger order, or could have persuaded the buyer to purchase a product better suited to his needs.

Assumption No. 2: “I know the buyer’s business; therefore, I don’t have to review the buyer’s business needs.”

This assumption leads to different shortcuts. For example, the customer needs analysis may be reduced to a routine question: “What’s new in your business?” Obviously this question won’t reveal the buyer’s new business plans, budget or personnel changes, new competitors, etc.

The seller’s shortcut also will induce the buyer to think: “I don’t need to tell the sales rep everything about our business. If he’s interested, he’ll ask for specifics. If he doesn’t, it’ll

be his problem.”

Salespeople tend not to understand that questions about the buyer’s needs communicate more than a simple request for information. Questions are statements in disguise.

A question like “What’s new?” can communicate boredom. However, a question: “I’d like to know how your needs have changed since we talked last,” can communicate genuine interest in the customer’s business.

The assumption by the salesperson that he or she knows the buyer or the buyer’s business can lead to shortcuts in the sales presentation which, in turn, ultimately lead to lost sales and sales commissions.

What can you do to help your salespeople become more task-oriented so they will use their professional selling skills on every single call?

Change your own relationship with your sales reps.

You are probably already aware of some of your salespeople’s selling shortcuts. Identify the complacent performers. Your mutually comfortable relationship with them may have decreased your ability to appraise their performances objectively. Changing your habits of dealing with the complacent rep may be uncomfortable, but it’s well worth your efforts to step out of the “old groove.” There’s nothing wrong with being friendly, but if your complacent rep does not do the job, neither one of you will be gaining.

Increase your level of expectations of the complacent sales rep.

Set the example. Each time you renew your relationship with the sales rep, make sure you review one of the rep’s accounts. For example, you may ask for a detailed report on one of your major accounts covering new suppliers, business volume, new projects, changes in personnel, etc. Be sure to ask detailed questions about the selling techniques employed in the last call. Let your rep know you expect professional selling skills to be applied in each call. Your efforts will only bear fruit if you constantly expect your salespeople to become task-oriented.

Travel with your complacent rep.

Remember, your sales rep respects what you inspect. Ask your rep to demonstrate professional selling skills during a few joint calls. Make sure that you pick the clients to visit. Insist on reviewing the objective for each call. Before the actual call, ask the sales rep about the buyer’s purchasing habits.

In your field coaching you may find some surprises: Some salespeople “protect” buyers from purchasing your latest product. Others avoid offering a special promotion because they assume that the buyer won’t be interested. Others don’t bargain for the best possible deal.

Review each call by asking your sales rep to describe the best and worst moments of the call. Make the sales rep aware of the inconsistencies you’ve observed. Then share your ideas on how different selling techniques could help to produce better results.

Ask your salespeople to keep track of sales made by your competitors. Develop a “competitive sales report” form. This will not only tell you about individual sales performance, but also about the effectiveness of your overall marketing strategy.

Train your salespeople.

Develop an ongoing sales training program. Teach professional selling skills. Put your salespeople to the test. Use role-play exercises to improve their verbal and nonverbal selling power. Teach your salespeople about the dynamics involved in their relationships with buyers. As these relationships grow, there is an initial period of learning about each other. Here salespeople are on their best behavior and use their best professional skills. As buyer and seller get to know each other better, they tend to exchange experiences outside the business area — thus moving further away from their initial roles. It is at this point that many salespeople become victims of their assumptions about their customer’s business.

As a sales manager, you can keep salespeople from becoming complacent. You can help by stepping out of your own comfortable relationship with them, by communicating higher expectations, by reviewing their performance on the job and their lost sales. A key step is to commit yourself to an ongoing sales training program. Following these steps can mean a dramatic increase in your sales and profits. But more important: Keeping your salespeople from getting complacent will prevent you from going the same route.