In this Expert Insight Interview, Kevin Snow discusses sales as a conversation and the misconceptions that still surround the sales profession. Kevin Snow is the founder of Time on Target, a sales expert, technology geek, and entrepreneur.
This Expert Insight Interview discusses:
- The misconceptions surrounding the sales profession
- How Kevin Snow changed his approach to sales
- Why getting closure is more important than closing
Misconceptions
People still labor under the misconception that you have to be highly outspoken to be a successful salesperson; you have to be able to develop relationships immediately, dominate conversations, and overwhelm your charm. It is still widely believed that salespeople are born, not made.
Kevin’s approach to selling goes against this idea and is one that any personality type can be successful at because he looks at sales differently. He is an introvert, so he naturally had to learn to sell differently. He tried to sell like the extroverts, being loud, verbose, and using all the power-closing techniques, but he couldn’t do it because it was not authentic to his personality type. That’s when he decided to change his approach.
Changing the Approach
Kevin realized that to remain in sales and make money; he had to figure out how to do it. It took a while, but the one thing he now tries to share with as many people as possible is to stop focusing on the close and concentrate on getting closure for the conversation you’re in.
If all you are focusing on is getting the prospect to say “yes,” you will push them too hard, too fast, more often than not. This will typically result in them not feeling too happy about the outcome, which means it will be harder for them to say “yes” next time.
Closure vs. Closing
Whenever you have a conversation with your friends, family, or romantic partner, that conversation always ends with the next steps. Sales conversations have to be the same way. When you get to the end of that conversation, there must be closure, and both sides must be happy with how the conversation went and ended.
If you try to get them to say “yes,” no matter what, you’re not getting that. Focusing too hard on closing puts you into that salesperson-prospect dynamic instead of two peers talking to each other.
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
Comments