Ditch the Sales Stereotypes!

Many people in the translation industry have a negative opinion of or hold old-fashioned stereotypes about sales.  There is a tendency to think that salespeople are

• Overconfident and like to pressure customers
• Only care about their commissions
• Lightweights about processes, operations, or anything technical
• Sleezy and lie
• Super outgoing and talk a lot

Question:  Do any of you actually buy from salespeople who are like this?  I doubt it.  So why do we still hang on to the stereotypes?

This wrong thinking about sales hurts our industry a lot and, not surprisingly, makes people balk at the even slightest suggestion of taking on the smallest of sales tasks.  Sales is still necessary and perhaps more important than ever given the competitive environment in which we work. 

In my experience, the best salespeople are generally the exact antithesis of the above list.  Eliminating this thinking is essential to our success, but this is not the only thing we must consider if we truly want to overcome the intense price competition and other challenges our industry faces.  First, we need to consider the adverse effects our ingrained image of sales has on our businesses.  Second, we need to understand what good sales practices actually look like.

Poor Selling Skills = Price Competition

Poor selling skills, in addition to the fear of selling are in large part, the cause of the pricing issues our industry faces.  We need to develop our sales fluency.  Yes, there is intense competition and yes, there are transactional, price-only buyers, but there are also value buyers who care about more than price.  It is up to us to distinguish between the two.  If a client constantly asks about the price or consistently asks you to lower it, they are a price buyer and possibly don’t care about quality at all.  It is our job to identify price buyers and and stop wasting our valuable time on these folks and devote it to true value buyers. 

We can also get into price discussions with value buyers, because the “quality, on-time delivery and price” pitch sounds like every other LSP they’re talking to. If that’s what all their potential LSPs are saying, then the customer can’t tell the difference among apparent equals.  So, they end up using price as the default decision-making criteria. Fun.

Quality, delivery, price are not differentiators, because nobody is out there selling bad quality, slow delivery at an extortionate price!  This means we’ve fostered price buying by the way we typically sell!

Instead of using the “quality, delivery, price” conversations that focus on ourselves, we need to focus on the why…why value buyers buy.  They buy the benefits of translation, not the translations themselves.  We need to think in terms of what problems translation solves for the customer or what goals it helps them achieve.  Solving problems and achieving objectives are usually why our customers are judged by their bosses or awarded a salary increase or promotion.  Why not help them do this?  Solving specific customer problems or linking our services to customer goals carries far more value to the buyer than parroting the typical industry sales pitch, because they can see how they and their company benefit from it.

The Salesperson Becomes a Consultant

Sales today more resembles consulting than the stereotyped sales rep of the distant past, particularly with end customers, and goes way beyond quality, delivery and price in sales discussions.  According to @Hubspot, a consultant is defined as “someone who offers advice and expertise to client organizations or individuals to help them improve their business performance.  Their work can focus on operations, strategy, management, IT, finance, marketing, sales, HR, regulatory compliance, etc.”  Does our industry improve our client’s business performance in all these sectors?  I’d say that’s a big YES. 

What do consultants in a sales context do?  They

1. Develop an understanding of the customer’s industry, business, role and trends by researching it.
2. Demonstrate this expertise to build trust with the customer.
3. Determine how they can best HELP the client by asking great questions about the client’s business goals and challenges…and then
4. Provide insights and education to the client, based on all of the above, that are far better than the competition’s pitch.
5. Bring in technical experts to provide additional insights and value to the buyer.
6. Collaborate, recommend and gain agreement with the client on the value of the solution, rather than inviting the buyer to compare price lists.  …and they ultimately
7. Ask for the business based on a sales journey that is far more interesting, compelling and useful for the client and far more interesting and principled for the salesperson.  Asking for the business then becomes more of a final agreement and natural progression, since the consultant salesperson has already provided a lot of value and interim client agreement during the sales process. 

Bottom Line

Approaching sales from a consultant’s stance differentiates your LSP from those relying on the old “quality, delivery, price” sales pitch.  You’re providing value throughout the sales cycle which will substantially increase client trust and your wins.  You can replicate this process with similar customers and replicate it to customize for other types of buyers. 

These were the kinds of skills that enabled my business partner, @Thomas Edwards, and I to be very successful when we were competing against one another for localization business in the Silicon Valley.  Get in touch to find out how we can help you in your consultative sales journey!