Category: Customer Service

Selling With An Outward Mindset

Selling With An Outward Mindset

Professional sales people instinctively know that to be effective they must focus on the needs of their prospects, customers, or clients and not on their product or service.  This is often referred to as needs-satisfaction selling.  Sales Professionals have been trained  to place their client’s interests first by asking questions using a needs analysis and to finalize the sale only when the customer perceives that their needs will be satisfied.    Often referred to as a “consultative selling method”, it has been the engine of professional selling since the 1970’s when it was first introduced by Xerox as Professional Selling Skills.

There have been hundreds of books written about selling.  A quick Google search on ‘Books About Sales’ brings up about 202 million entries.  Their authors include highly respected sales experts like Neil Rackham, Robert Miller, Stephen Herman, Brian Tracy, Jeffrey Gitomer, Art Sobczak, Anthony Iannarino, and Tony Alessandra.   If you understand and apply what you learn from any of these authors, you will gain insight into how you can increase your sales success.

I recently read The Outward Mindset©, subtitled “seeing beyond outselves”, produced by The Arbinger Institute.  Arbinger helps people and organizations achieve breakthrough results through a profound change in mindset.  In my view, they have a vital message that business professionals, parents, clergy-people, educators and social workers must read.  It is an extremely practical, simple, and meaningful approach to leadership at any level.  It does not focus on sales, sales training, or sales technique.  And that’s why every person who engages in any aspect of sales or customer service should read The Outward Mindset.

The Exciting Future of Sales depends on sales professionals who can collaborate and communicate with others by having an outward mindset.  They must be able to change the way they see and regard their own connections with and obligations to others.  It is simply a matter of learning to see beyond yourself.   It elevates the consultative sales approach to a new level of effectiveness.  Here is an example of how an outward mindset can apply to a salesperson who wants to help a cleint:

John has a meeting scheduled with his client, Adam, whose company has  unexpectedly told him that he cannot renew contracts unless they have been reviewed by senior management.  Adam has lost his authority to renew contracts without approval.  Clearly, Adam feels his judgement and professionalism are being threatened and has concluded that  his job is on the line.  Adam tells John about his inability to approve John’s renewal and that he wants a completely new proposal that justifies why he should renew his contract with John.

Now John feels threatened because he thinks Adam feels that he has been price gouging him or thinks that John takes his business for granted.  John wants to react quickly, but what he really needs to do is to think with an open mindset.  He needs to ask himself what it must feel like to be Adam.  Adam is clearly threatened by this new procedure.   How can he help Adam gain the confidence of senior management to convince them that he is professional and competent?  How might he help Adam ensure senior management that he is acting in the best interests of the company with every contract he renews.

Having an open mindset like this might be difficult for a sales person who has always won business by dropping the price at the first sign of resistance.  Or he or she might have been trained that they need to establish a better ‘relationship’ with their customers and interpret that to mean they should entertain their clients, take them to football games, or to lunch and dinner more often.

With an outward mindset, John decides that he can help Adam learn how to negotiate better with his boss and with upper management because Adam has never had to do that before.  And, John knows of a negotiation seminar he can invite Adam to attend with him.  He is focused on helping Adam regain his confidence.

Addressing the question, “what must it be like to be Adam,” is far different than having a closed mindset that will cause John to want to make deals, delay the deadline for the decision, or figure out how to manipulate Adam to do what he wants Adam to do.

Sales professionals face an exciting future when they realize that the mark of a professional sales person is not tied to his or her ego and their need to be the best.  It is understanding that professional selling is not about selling; it is about helping the buyer succeed.

An Outward Mindset can guide you into an enhanced understanding of professional selling today and in the future.  It should be recommended reading for all sales, marketing, and customer service leaders and their teams.

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Harrison Greene is the founder of Unique Selling Systems, focused on helping senior sales management prepare their sales people for the exciting future of sales.  He is the author of The Exciting Future of Sales blog.  EMail:  Harrison@HarrisonGreene.com

For-Profit Schools — Sign Up or Be Accepted?

accepted-rejected 

There is a quandary for-profit (proprietary) technical schools and colleges.  They are being clobbered by federal regulations that place requirements on them that are not placed on not-for-profit educational institutions.  This Department of Education has increased this heat and shows no signs of abetting.

Many proprietary schools have been forced to close their doors because they could not attain the Department of Education’s requirements.  The quandary is that while ethical proprietary schools want to provide excellent education and training outcomes, they are are now feeling a loss in student enrollment. The unethical standards of some money-hungry technical schools have penalized well-run proprietary schools.

The history of unsavory for-profit institutions interested only in profit is well documented.  Their success was obtained at the expense of students who enrolled based on false admission promises. They were lured by claims of guaranteed placement in jobs they were told paid extraordinary amounts of money. These schools targeted those students who could receive the most financial aid. Proprietary schools that operated like that should not have the right to ruin the lives of students who were hopeful that the sacrifices they made to acquire a meaningful skill to provide a  future for themselves and their families.

Reputable proprietary schools are forced to increase their marketing budgets to increase the number of inquiries they receive.  They can no longer rely on radio and television advertising and are turning to new lead generation sources like social media, email, and inbound lead generation.

Since most proprietary schools have adopted a quantative admissions mindset that measures the number of inquiries that result in applications, it is doubtful that increasing inquiries will make a meaningful impact on student outcomes.  Quantitative admission systems were designed to put as many students in seats as capacity would allow.   But if those students are not capable of graduating because they had so many external pressures put upon them. Many potential students are in lower socioeconomic brackets and don’t have support from those closest to them. They have a tough time staying in class until graduation.

If an educational institution is truly interested in the success of its students, it must ensure that it accepts them based on qualitative criteria, not just on whether they graduated from high school or have a GED.  For-profit schools often emphasize securing admission deposits and scheduling a financial aid briefing.  Some schools that interview prospective students simply ask transparent questions designed to make the student feel that he or she is being interviewed.  Questions like how long you have been thinking about earning more or how much would you like to earn as a (technician, automotive technical, medical assistant, etc.)?   Seldom would the student be rejected unless the school could not help them attain enough financial aid to enable them to enroll.

Few schools try to determine if the student has the support and encouragement of their significant family members. Many don’t determine if it is realistic for them to work all day and commute to the school for evening classes, how much time the student is willing to study outside of class, or if they have transportation to attend class.

There must be a fundamental shift in the psychology of admissions.  A good school that operates in the student’s interest will want to know that, if accepted, the student has the desire, interest, motivation, and support of their significant others in evaluating whether they should accept the student.  The goal of getting another ‘sign up’ or ‘body in a seat’ must be shifted.

Instead, the applicant should feel that he or she is being carefully evaluated to determine if they will be able to become a graduate and that if they do, they will be considered for admission.  There needs to be an Acceptance Policy that measures a student’s potential for success.

If the applicant can not be accepted, it is the responsibility of the admissions department to propose another course of action or recommend a plan to help the student gain admission.

I have heard many school owners state that it is ridiculous to be qualitative because “I have seen many students who I didn’t think would ever graduate do so with great sacrifice and determination and others who I was sure would be a superstar student drop out after two weeks.”   Basing an admissions process on an exception is not a plausible way to make a decision that can affect a person’s life… forever.

The operating credo of senior management must be that the Admissions Department must conduct a meaningful interview to determine if the student can be accepted and has a good chance of graduating.  It must ensure that admission representatives are trained to recommend acceptance, when valid,  or to help the student find another pathway to success.

When Acceptance is the mindset of senior management, they will quickly see an increase in two vital metrics they are probably not presently measuring… the application to the start rate and the start rate to the graduation rate.  The real benefit will be that more graduates will find employment in the career for which they trained.

Harrison Greene is the founder of Unique Enrollment Systems and has helped small, independent proprietary, and nationally known multi-campus schools increase revenue through a qualitative method of enrolling students.  He can be reached at 508-400-6193 or through email at harrison@harrisongreene.com.