As sellers, we’d like to think that customers eventually see the error of their ways. Customers, being the customer, have the right to make bad buys.

And they do, whether it’s recessionary tough times or not.

Sellers, being legitimate and honest sellers, take the high road and accept it when customers make those bad buys.

So now you have customers in a bad situation and good sellers looking in from the outside agreeing its a bad situation.

4 Certainties Today

#1) Cumulative Bad Buys Harm the Market Place
#2) Customers Do Not Fix Bad Buys
#3) What Sellers Can Do About BIG Bad Buys
#4) What Sellers Can Do About SMALLER Bad Buys

#1) Cumulative Bad Buys Harm the Market Place

During this recession customers probably made more bad buys than previously. However, they did it under the veil of reducing cost.

A bad buy is one where the requirements, specifications or expectations remain the same but customers buy at lowered prices.

Something’s not right. Sellers’ margins had been skinny per-recession, there’s little to no fat to remove. Fuel prices and health care costs did not go down. No new technologies have increased supplier productivity by multiples.

Lowering prices but keeping the same deliverables means something’s not delivered.

Therefore, customers are not getting what they’re promised contractually even though they’re paying less for it than in prior years. This is the definition of a bad buy.

The cumulative effect on the market place is to bring pricing down yet still keep deliverables where they were.

Now as the economy is crawling out of the doldrums, pricing levels are where they were 10 or more years ago.

Yet the hypocrisy of over promising and under-delivering is greater.

Customers making bad buys from desperate sellers. Where will it end?

#2) Customers Do Not Fix Bad Buys

Do customers admit they made bad buys and rectify them? Do they terminate the failing contract and hire the suppliers they should have?

In most cases the answer is no.

Customers Don’t Fix Bad Buys When it’s Big Dollars & High Visibility

Customers will not correct a bad buy if the price was large and the purchase highly visible within their organization (i.e. Procurement was involved).

This is more than loss of pride by admitting they made a poor choice. This is their job security. Customers get very sensitive to keeping their jobs the higher up the purchases reach.

Real World Example

In one example of a big bad buy, a global facility management firm swallowed the sales pitch of a questionable supplier when bidding out a $60 million dollar contract.

• Of course the supplier would work without profit for two years
• Of course the supplier would exceed contract specifications
• Of course the supplier had references willing to confirm this

So the management firm bought, and it was a bad buy. From the first day of service the supplier couldn’t deliver. No supplier could. But the deal was too big for the management firm that bought it. They couldn’t admit to their customer they’d been had.

So what did they do? They spent three years grinding on the bad supplier to wring out the barest minimum in contract compliance. This meant they were distracted. It meant they weren’t delivering as much value to their customer because they were busy holding a shotgun to the bad supplier.

At the end of the three years the management firm rebid the contract and a legitimate supplier won the bid.

The moral of the story is customers with large dollar purchases will not fix a bad buy. They’ll let the contract run out and then change.

The exception to customers fixing a bad buy is in the public sector. Because if it looks like the bad buy is the customer’s fault it could also look illegal. In those cases, customers will definitely boost out a bad buy. They’ll show how the supplier misrepresented its offer or egregiously did not perform. That kind of bad buy could earn customers a stay with free room and board in prison.

What Sellers Can Do About BIG Bad Buys

Honestly, after the fact there’s not a lot losing sellers can do when customers make large dollar bad buys. Here are a few things that can be done.

Stick Close

If it’s a big dollar opportunity, sellers must stick close to customers even immediately after losing a sale.

Obviously this doesn’t mean crowding or stalking lost customers, but respectful relationship building. This does mean continuing to provide customers valuable information, and keeping them apprised of industry trends and advancements.

Stay Non-Judgmental

Take the honorable high-road and believe customers made the best decisions they could at the time, with the information they had. There may have been unknown circumstances that forced customer’s decisions; circumstances suppliers were unaware of.

If sellers allow disgust or disrespect into their feelings, those feelings will eventually leak into future interactions with that customer. Disgruntled sellers may even retaliate in their pricing next time.

Find Lateral Sale Opportunities

Research smaller add-on sales. Talk with the customer to tactfully learn their level of acceptance and acknowledgment they made a bad buy.

Seek to engineer a small break away portion of the larger sale, if possible. If the customer is openly unhappy, ask them for a smaller piece of the sale pie. Additionally, ask to sell them a peripheral service/item, one the incumbent supplier typically gets by default.

What Sellers Can Do About SMALLER Bad Buys

There’s more room for losing sellers to make things happen when customers make small-dollar bad buys. The exit barriers for customers are lower.

Ease Cost of Repurchase

Customers are already out of pocket the purchase price. Make it easy for them to swallow the bad buy and get happy with your good deal. Consider:

* Extending payment terms (smaller payments over longer term)
* Offering rebates & show purchase price net rebate
* Offering volume discounts & show lower per unit price
* Providing money back guarantees – what have they got to lose?
* Granting special client status with aggressively low pricing – if they’re worth it

Stick Close

So it’s a small dollar opportunity, it’s still critical to stick close to customers after losing a sale.  Again, no crowding or stalking, just respectful concern and relationship building.

As a smaller sale opportunity, you’ll spend much less time providing information, industry trends and advancements. However, if these customers liked you, ask for referrals.

Stay Non-Judgmental

Take the honorable high-road and believe customers made the best decisions they could at the time, with the information they had.

Find Lateral Sale Opportunities

Research smaller lateral sales.Tactfully learn customers’ level of acceptance and acknowledgment they made a bad buy. Try to sell them a smaller service/item to get them on the books.

Bad Buys into Good Hellos

The reality is that sellers must live with customers’ bad buys. Don’t worry, many customers knowingly suffer from their bad buys and are waiting for the next chance to fix them.

Sellers can help out. It takes longer with large dollar buys but still there is seller work to be done. Smaller dollar buys are more malleable and sellers can do some creative things to help customers fix bad buys there.

• What’s your experience in getting customers out of bad buys?
• What did you do?
• How long did it take?

Salespeople are known to change jobs frequently. And there are millions of us with tentative tenure. In 2009 there were 16 million salespeople in the U.S.

If we miss our numbers, have a difficult boss, get assigned to a barren territory, go to market without marketing materials, or get stuck with a bum offering – we can be out the door in the blink of an eye.

Of course, when we succeed we’re paid better than many of our customers  – that is if we sell them.

We are Not Alone

Salespeople aren’t the only people losing or changing jobs. According to the U.S. Department of Labor – Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2010 the average employee had been with their current employer only 4.4 years*. That’s not very long.

Average employees are among our buyers/ customers. They too suffer 4.4 years on average with their employers.

What does short job tenure among buyers mean to sellers?

Lots. As a salesperson, imagine meeting a buyer for the first time and they’re ignorant of the service they’re managing and buying – which unfortunately is the one you’re selling. Painful. Time consuming.

In addition to minimal service knowledge, low job tenure for buyers can mean:

Job insecurity – how does that effect buyers’ decision making?

Wearing too many hats – how likely are salespeople to get buyers’ time or attention?

Limited business experience – how long before they experience the taste of poor quality overcoming the allure of low price?

What does short job tenure mean for salespeople?

Salespeople are an independent people with a nomadic soul. They’re eternally looking for that restfull homeland where their success compensates them well and keeps their employers happy and off their backs.

But the reality. The reality of 9 to 10 to 20 different employers in their lifetime points to a belief system that shouldn’t be brought to their employers’ attention.

For the professional salesperson this is a cascading set of beliefs that flows from the first to the last. Here they are:

• Salespeople will have many employers in their careers – each requiring results gained from relationships with buyers/customers

• Salespeople must put their relationships with buyers /customers over that of their own company

• Salespeople must see their relationships with buyers/customers are for life – wherever buyers/customers go, so goes the salesperson, and the sale

• Salespeople and buyers/customers can become social friends – which increases the satisfaction & enjoyment of working for a living

• Salespeople must act with integrity as their greatest business currency is the trust, credibility and loyalty of their buyers/customers

In the End

We’re all transient workers. The current company that employs us will most likely not be the one we’ll be with in five years. The same is true for our buyers/customers.

The lesson for salespeople is to play the sales game with 150% integrity, honesty and authenticity, as our team mates (buyers/customers) are on the same ride as we are, and we want their support (sales) as we both go through our careers.

* Interpreting Tenure Data

The U.S. Department of Labor – Bureau of Labor Statistics‘ survey data is relatively simple yet the more you dive into it the less it tells you anything definitively. Here’s the Bureau’s own caveat on interpreting the data:

Interpreting tenure data

Data on tenure have been used as a gauge of employment security, with some observers regarding increases in tenure as a sign of improving security and decreasing tenure as a sign of deteriorating security.

However, there are limitations to using the data in this way. For example, during recessions or other periods of declining job security, median tenure and the proportion of workers with long tenure could rise because less senior workers are more likely to lose their jobs
than are workers with longer tenure. During periods of economic growth, median tenure and the proportion of workers with long tenure could fall because more job opportunities are available for new entrants to the workforce and experienced workers have more opportunities to change employers and take better jobs. Tenure also could rise under improving economic conditions, however, as fewer layoffs occur and good job matches develop between workers and employers.

A changing age distribution among workers would also affect median tenure. Since older workers are more likely to have long tenure with their current employer than younger workers, aging baby boomers in the workforce would provide upward pressure on overall median tenure.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ

In the late Recessionary period Procurement is king when it comes to supplier selection for large contracts.

In this evolutionary time, business owners (those who manage the selected supplier) have little to no say in the decision of suppliers. They fear for their own jobs and most often won’t risk pushing back against what they feel may be a bad choice by Procurement.

This is especially puzzling as Procurement doesn’t have to live with their own decision – and business owners should be the most knowledgeable about the service being bid and suppliers’ machinations.

Once upon a time (3-5 years ago) business owners did push back. Several large, national contracts awarded by Procurement had numerous regional exceptions, results of non-acceptance by business owners. However, in the light of the Great Recession this seems as rare as a living T. rex.

Procurement doesn’t eat their own cooking

This is important to say again – Procurement doesn’t live with their own supplier decisions.

They source, vett, analyze the market, and bid out contracts. Once a decision is done and a contract is awarded, Procurement is off to another opportunity. From this position, their take on decision making is definitely skewed. The difference between Procurement of the past and today’s Procurement’s is that their decisions now have far more corporate weight as firms fight to survive.

Unfortunately, Procurement’s choice still often zeroes in on PPV (Purchase Price Variation), which is the difference of the current contracted price from the last. Procurement believes it’s doing the right thing when it focuses on lowest pricing if it’s pre-qualified the bidding suppliers.

The harm to facility services

This means a downward spiral of market price on facility service contracts, even more so on the “soft” services of janitorial, landscaping, etc.

As a result of this evolution, some suppliers are willing to take new business below cost to gain large revenue, and/or flagship accounts. These suppliers feel more pressure to show top line growth for their equity owners, and hope to make bottom line profit through the in-filling of smaller profitable business.

What’s this mean for selling services?

Procurement still makes decisions – they are still buyers. And all buyers, whether Procurement or business owners, base their decisions:

* Externally –> on the information they have, and

* Internally –> how they emotionally feel about the choices available

Service suppliers must now invest more time and effort to develop insight about customers’ Procurement processes and buyers – in addition to understanding the needs and wants of business owners.

Sellers have had to sell to multiple agendas in the past where there were multiple decision makers, i.e. finance, safety, HR, etc. Today, Procurement is just the biggest, baddest decision maker of them all. But for who knows how long? The economy is slowly reviving, and there was an ice age. Welcome to the 21st century.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris “rex” Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ

If there’s one must-have, die-without sales training, it’s understanding Points of View (POV)…that are not one’s own.

POV is the genesis of customers buying, contracting, managing, and changing suppliers. Of contractors selling, serving, retaining, and profiting from customers.

Can’t understand a customers’ POV? No business. Period. End of story.

Understand how customers view the world, and contractors can:

• Help customers buy
• Make customers look good
• Work on the customers side of the desk (partnering anybody?)

Free Training

Here are a number of past blogs and articles that focus on the customers POV, specifically when they’re buying.

Buying in General

3 Stages of the Buying Cycle: Start here if you’re trying to sell, the PDF download details specific seller activities based on where the customer is in their buying cycle.

Voice of the Customer in the Buying Cycle: You can almost hear them speak (shouldn’t you hear them anyway?).

Crystal Ball

Overcoming Recession Reluctance: NOTE the date, Feb 2008. Wow, got this one right.

Horse’s Mouth

Procurement Talks: An Interview with Microsoft,  Expedia

Procurement Mindset

Selling to Procurement: A look at 2 styles of procurement and how sellers can approach them.

What’s the Right Price for Service?: Hand this to customers/buyers. Help them understand it’s a SERVICE, not a PRODUCT!

Reversing into Darkness: One of my favorites. There’s a great comment from an outsourcing procurement firm, wonderful insight into the buying POV.

Good Luck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ & Service Performance

Obviously we do if we’re selling or managing sales. But buyers (aka prospects or customers) have no reason to care. They receive no benefit by helping sales people.

As dumb and basic as this sounds, most sales people still work as if this wishful thinking were true. They expect buyers to do the sellers’ work, helping sales people sell.

Doubt this? Ask a salesperson to answer the following:

• What message do you leave on buyers’ voicemail that gets a return call?
• What do you email buyers that gets a reply?
• How do you get buyers to call you from your web site or direct mail piece?
• How do you get a face-to-face intro appointment with buyers?
• How do you elicit open & honest communication with a buyer you’ve just met?
• How do you gain a buyer’s trust so they share complete & thorough information about their situation?
• How do you secure a face-to-face meeting to submit your proposal to a buyer? (when not part of an RFP process)
• How do you engender fair & value-based consideration of your proposal
• How do you get timely & honest feedback from buyers after your proposal & presentation?

2X Questions

Tough questions to be sure, but asking them provides focus and can mobilize sales efforts to come up with answers, even though the first ones may not be ideal.

They’re also trick questions too.

Because whatever the answers are they’re describing what sellers want – not what buyers want. And to win sales means satisfying buyers’ wants.

Those seller’s questions can help translate seller’s wants into buyer’s wants. For each question above try to:

1) Identify a matching buyer want, then

2) Develop an action that satisfies the buyer’s want

When sales people can do this successfully they’re able to advance the sale to the next step, and the next, and the next, right up to the buyer signing.

What Buyers Want

Buyers want many things, but you already knew that. Their wants can be grouped into Business-Related and Personal-Related. Here’s a simple list for both:

BUSINESS-RELATED WANTS

• High-value suppliers sourced & vetted
• Trusted supplier-partnerships established
• Vendor/service management time reduced
• Costs lowered
• Defects/deficiencies minimized
• Output/yield/throughput increased
• Customer satisfaction raised
• End-user productivity raised
• Value from spend optimized
• Service contributions valued
• Service performance visibility
• Regulatory compliace ensured

PERSONAL-RELATED WANTS

• Recognized for personal successes
• Justified budget & headcount
• Tasked with high visibility/importance initiatives
• Increased job security
• Optimized performance-based bonuses

Connecting the Wants to Actions

The exercise of translating seller’s wants into buyer’s wants, then developing seller’s actions might look something like this:

SELLER’S WANT: To elicit open & honest communication with a buyer you’ve just met.

BUYER’S WANT: To find high-value suppliers that can become trusted supplier-partners.

SELLER’S ACTIONS:

a) Present evidence to buyers of seller’s long-term valued customer partnerships, in testimonials, case studies, white papers, videos, etc. – avoid bragging

b) Get buyers together with your reference customers, at lunches, in seminars, in benchmarking groups, on site tours of your references’ facility, etc.

c) Tell buyers what you’re going to do, do it, and then confirm that you did it. Do this in everything, especially  little things, like calling back on a certain day and time, emailing materials, etc. Always follow up with a call, voice or email to show you met your follow-up commitment. Your actions live the promise of reliability and trust that buyers want.

d) Plan and implement a series of small events/activities during the initial contact period that deliver value specifically to what the buyer is interested in. This means fact finding early and repeatedly so that you’re delivering specifically what they’re looking for. Even if it’s as simple as a restaurant recommendation.

In the End

Our success as sellers is based on first identifying what we want and then translating those into buyers’ wants. Once done, we can focus on how best to deliver and get both.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue IQ

An article in today’s New York Times describes a possible change in the way federal contracts are awarded, and it specifically calls out facility service contracts.

Plan to Seek Use of U.S. Contracts as a Wage Lever

The Obama administration is planning to use the government’s enormous buying power to prod private companies to improve wages and benefits for millions of workers, according to White House officials and several interest groups briefed on the plan.

By altering how it awards $500 billion in contracts each year, the government would disqualify more companies with labor, environmental or other violations and give an edge to companies that offer better levels of pay, health coverage, pensions and other benefits, the officials said.

Because nearly one in four workers is employed by companies that have contracts with the federal government, administration officials see the plan as a way to shape social policy and lift more families into the middle class. It would affect contracts like those awarded to make Army uniforms, clean federal buildings and mow lawns at military bases. (read the full article)

How might this effect Facility Service Contractors?

Is this good or bad for contractors, those going after federal contracts? Why?

Obviously, this is for federal contracts only….at the moment. If this change were successful with federal contracts, would city, county and state be far behind?

What about the private sector? Specifically high profile firms like those in consumer goods, banks and academic institutions. Their purchasing decisions already pay attention to maintaining a good public image.

I’ve started asking contractors what they think about this change and here’s the first response.

I think it would be great if we could all compete on an even playing field with hours, wages and benefits set in advance. I believe our company (IH Services) provides the type of work environment, management expertise and forward thinking that could get us more contracts in this environment. We do not have employment violations because we follow the rules, not like some of our competitors.

Taylor M. Bruce, Jr., President, I H Services, Inc.

What are your thoughts?

What do you think? Share your comments in this post. I’m very interested to hear your perspective on the future.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue IQ

Here’s a customer-contractor situation that, although it doesn’t happen too frequently, is extremely dicey when it does.

Your customer wants a non-contract service from you, but the project isn’t in their budget.

To pay for your project they need an amount from you so they can find a place to allocate that unplanned spend.

You provide an estimate to be billed on actual per-unit-pricing because you know the scope of this particular service varies hugely. Not because you’re a poor estimator or a sloppy provider, but because customers always get excited and want more, or your customers’ end-users want more.

Either way, your scope typically increases substantially from the original estimate and that’s why you provide pricing based on a per hour or item basis.

But here’s the rub. Your customer took your estimate as an absolute, and communicated it upstairs for approval. Without your knowledge your estimate is now a fixed fee.

Sure enough, you get started with your non-contract service and your customer gets excited and scope expands.

You believe it’s all covered because you priced it on a unit cost and your customer is happily increasing scope.

Unfortunately, once the work is done and your bill arrives, your customer changes from ectastic with your results to letting you in on their little failing. Your estimate became their not to exceed budget.

Customers do that sometimes. Either because they feel they can’t get their pet projects funded, or don’t want to upset their bosses with a larger, more conservative number in the first place.

To keep it under the radar your customer presents the financial picture in it’s most humble light. They figure they can sort it out after the fact. And of course that means you’ll help them figure it out.

What to do?

At this point in time almost every solution will be uncomfortable, for you and/or your customer.

The following are some possible ways out, but they’re not for everyone. If any of these make you feel uncomfortable, by all means skip them.

Bill overage onto 2nd smaller invoice

Spreading actual amounts above the estimate onto a second smaller project your customer can get through on a different Purchase Order (PO). Customers usually have other projects and some will have a little left over space on another PO.

Of course you only take this approach with your direct customer’s full knowledge and approval.

Carry overage onto 2nd project

Hold off billing for the overage on this project and include it on the next project. Ask your customer to guarantee the next project and get a start date. However, if projects are competitively bid it’ll be tough to cover overage costs this way.

And again, you only take this approach with your direct customer’s full knowledge and approval.

Eat the overage & not bill

You can take the loss and not recapture your billing. It’s the least palatable for you but may be required depending on your customer relationship. Also, the size of the overage will also dictate whether you can live with this option.

If you go this route, make sure your customer knows what you’re doing. Hopefully it’ll be worth the brownie points.

Hold fast & bill full amount

This may be the least palatable for your customer. But if you submit your bill with your written proposal that clearly states billed per actual unit then you’re telling the customer “you made the mistake, you sort it out”.

This option depends on your customer relationship and the overage amount in question. Also, even after approval, your payment may take a while to get paid if your customer is no longer willing to shepherd it through their A/P process.

Educate & communicate with a hammer before doing the work

The best solution is always to avoid the problem in the first place. When asked to provide a pricing, consider your customer may likely consider that a budget amount. Since you can’t reasonably provide a fixed amount, you’ll need to educate the customer to why you’re pricing the work on a unit basis, to bill on actual incurred:

Try:

• Communicating the variables beyond your control
• In person or on the phone, explicity cover the per unit pricing & how those variables impact total spend
• Always confirming everything in a written proposal/estimate
• Adding text to your proposal/pricing confirmation in bold & caps THIS IS AN ESTIMATE, NOT A FIXED PRICE, BILLING ON ACTUAL INCURRED

No Guarantees

Customers sometimes are wild, unfathomable beings. As contractors we can only do our best. In this budget vs. estimate situation, being proactive and a good communicator is your best defense.

~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ

The old game for selling throws lots against the wall and something sticks – numbers comparing thrown to stuck.

And it’s still true, something sticks, eventually. Even one becomes the justification to continue the old game.

It’s the cost/benefit ratio that’s changed. The benefit keeps getting smaller relative to the cost.

But the throwing continues, because as it’s gotten less effective, it’s gotten more efficient. Grind-em-out salespeople, mail order catalogs and spam only take the rare few sales to keep playing.

Their throwing no longer produces the expected results, even from just a few years ago. Unfortunately, it only takes one to feed the habit.

The new game

Selling is still a numbers game, but a new one.

The numbers are humans (salespeople) working with other humans (customers) who are a lot smarter in 2010 than customers sold to in the 1950s.

Because customers are in different stages of their buying cycle, most salespeople need to be busy with more than one.

The new numbers game is based on:

• Salespeople not selling in ways that make themselves feel less than human
  -> customers buy from other humans

• Customers are more valuable to salespeople over the long-term
  -> high customer turnover is death to easy sales

• Salespeople build relationships with a customer through the accumulation of all that customer’s experiences with that salesperson & company
  -> salespeople are branded as much as their company

• Salespeople engage customers to help solve customers’ problems & realize customers’ benefits
  -> what else are salespeople for?

• Customers live in stages of their buying cycle
  -> not salespeople’s selling cycle

Playing the new numbers game

Sellers counsel customers through stages of the buying cycle.

To play the new game requires that salespeople:

• Are known, respected & trusted by customers
• Understand customers’ buying cycle
• Identify where customers are in that cycle
• Empathize with customers’ buying situation (risks, gains, fears, etc.)
• Make continual effort towards all the above

What game are you playing?

~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ

Customers have no choice, they must buy. It just might not be you.

Obvious? Overly simplistic? Sure it is, but…

I was talking with someone who’s about to begin an outside sales career after years of inside sales. Our conversation reminded me when I began selling, and I was a little intimated and embarrassed calling on customers.

At that time I didn’t know customers have no choice, they must buy. There are certain understandings fundamental to selling, and business in general. This is one of them.

Skip over this one, or miss it entirely, and your selling will be out of step with customers, apologetic, and a burden to yourself.

Customers 4 Buying Options

Customers have no choice, they must buy.

Why? Because they have needs. Explicit or hidden, all customers have needs. And those needs drive customers to one of only 4 options, customers can:

• buy you & your offering
• buy your competitor’s
• buy themselves by doing it themselves (aka going in-house)
• buy time by not deciding to change, waiting for something better to come along later ( look for next week’s post LOST OPPORTUNITY COST)

Therefore, if customers must buy, then salespeople have a purpose for their existence. Here it is:

Salespeople help customers become aware of their specific needs. Or, if customers are already aware, salespeople help them clarify the implications when those needs are fully or partially resolved, or not resolved.

The question isn’t “do I,  as a salesperson, have the right to contact customers?”. No, there’s an imperative for salespeople to engage customers. To help customers fulfill their purpose by helping them buy.

How do you help customers buy?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ

A few years ago Bill S. wrote:

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players”

We perform, and are judged by our audiences.

In business, as in theater, bad acting is wasteful and destructive. Here’s how:

For sales people, “bad acting” means actions and words that are seen as deceitful and greedy by customers (the audience).

For customers, “bad acting” means actions and choices that are seen as manipulative and punitive by contractors (the audience).

What are the chances anything valuable and lasting coming from these performances?

You Don’t Mean To

No salesperson or customer intentionally acts badly. Bad acting creeps up and becomes the norm over years.

And it’s impossible to self-diagnose. You’ll have many justifications for why you did or said something.

But in the performance of business it just comes off as bad acting.

Sales People – The “Don’t” List:

If you avoid the following, you’re further along toward being a better sales performer. If not, you’ll be seen as “salesly” by customers and likened to the plague.

• Don’t make extravagant, unsubstantiated claims – hyperbole makes customers cringe
• Don’t act overly chummy to recently met customers – hyperfriendly has them running to wash their hands
• Don’t always have an answer to things you don’t know – hyperknowitall axes you off customers’ trust list

Customers – The “Don’t List”:

At first glance it might not seem necessary for you to avoid bad acting.

However, even though there may be  many contractors to burn through, bad acting hurts  your reputation. And that stays with you, limiting your ability to accomplish your firm’s outsourcing goals.

So, avoid the following and contribute to your golden reputation. If not, you’ll become known in professional circles by names you’d rather not know about.

• Don’t withhold info you can share with contractors -  hypersecretive makes contractors think you lack trust
• Don’t require unreasonable hoop jumping of contractors – hyperdemanding is a sign to customers you’re hard work
• Don’t demean contractors for seeking a profit – hypercritical has contractors thinking you’re delusional or idiotic if you don’t know your firm seeks profit too

How do you avoid Bad Acting?

~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ