Today we take a light and fun look at what happened earlier in August with Donald Trump, and the comments that got him uninvited from a republican event that weekend. We’ll take a lesson from Trump in content management, and look at some tools that sales reps have in their arsenal for understanding a buyer’s reaction before the worst possible outcome occurs. In Trumps case, the uninvite, for a sales rep, it could be a lost sale.
Read on to learn about the one tool Trump didn’t have that every sales rep can take advantage of.
Today we’re going to take an airy look at how misaligned communications lead to unintended outcomes by applying a well-publicized event to a typical sales outcome.
Success in the sales presentation is all about delivering the right communication, and that comes from having the right content management. Clearly in Trumps case, the right content wasn’t being delivered for the desired outcome.
Trumps Actions
Here’s what happened. Donald Trump, GOP presidential candidate, was slated to speak at an activist conference on the weekend of August 8th. Trump’s supporters were looking forward to his appearance. The event organizer was looking forward to his appearance. Trump was looking forward to his appearance. But at about midnight on that Friday, the organizer disinvited Trump.
1-Sending the Wrong Communication
That Friday evening, just before his disinvite, Trump had an interview with CNN on the subject of Thursday’s Republican presidential debate in Cleveland. Trump attacked one of the moderators, Megyn Kelly, for her disposition. He said that she, “had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”
2-Getting the Wrong Reaction
Many people understood Trump’s comment as an attack on her femininity. Trump asserts that he said “whatever” instead of “wherever,” and was referring to Kelly’s nose. Whether this was indeed Trump’s true intention or not, he left the door wide open for an anti-feminist understanding. The event organizer was appalled by the comment, and disinvited Trump in response.
3-Continuing to Argue
Trump issued a response to his disinvite. The campaign said that the decision was “another example of weakness through being politically correct…Blame Erick Erickson, your weak and pathetic leader…”
Trump disagreed with Erickson’s decision, so he retaliated with that raging statement. It’s difficult to imagine that Trump will ever be invited to an event of Erickson’s again. Others surely took note of his less-than-positive behavior.
The Lessons Here
So, let’s break down this kind of interaction, as it relates to sales.
Arguing with the Customer is Always a Lost Cause
We’ll start with the third point, because regardless of whether the issue occurs before or after this, the worst thing that anyone can do is argue with a customer. You can have the best sales enablement software and a AAA content marketing team, but it all means nothing if you get into an argument with the customer during the sales process.
That should stand as a core rule to all sales; if you argue with the customer, you’ve already lost the sale. If the sales presentation has come to a point where the customer is disputing your claims, the challenge is not to argue, or even to stand down and allow the onslaught of rebuttal, but instead to dig deeper and understand the customer’s true perception.
Remember that we’re at the age of the empowered buyer. Even if you made best efforts to comb through your digital sales aids and send them everything they need to come to the right decision, there is still a chance they looked at the competitor’s content and formed pre-conceived notions.
If you need more insight into understanding the empowered buyer, and how they form their purchase decisions, check out this post about how to produce more relevancy from the sales process.
Sending the Wrong Communication is only Getting Easier
This happens more than you might think. In fact, it’s actually an unexpected outcome of digital content marketing. Right now, marketers are creating more digital content to help sales reps progress a decision journey.
Over time, and under a best case scenario, sales reps will be able to apply one or more content pieces to any situation that a buyer may be in. The idea is that buyer’s not only don’t have the time for several sales presentations, they want to come to their own conclusions, and the sales rep is but a vessel to help them along this journey.
So, what’s the problem?
As this content grows in size, being able to appropriately apply the right digital content piece to every situation gets more difficult. This happens for 2 reasons:
1) The large volume of content grows to a size that cannot be appropriately managed by traditional means such as file folders, email attachments, and etc.
2) The buyer becomes much more empowered, and thus much more complex to sell too. They ask more difficult questions, and form unknown buying criteria.
The link above about producing more relevancy is a great place to start if you’re looking for more details about the complexity of buyer requests due to content availability.
Otherwise, if you want to see more about the impact that content is having on sales reps, take a look at our post about the 4 steps to getting your customers to say yes with digital content, where the declining state of the sales rep is outlined, and effective ways to manage content are suggested.
But back to the point here: sending the wrong content is much too easy, and it’ll only get easier as digital content marketing continues to grow, and the sales process becomes a more complex ordeal.
Getting the Wrong Reaction isn’t as bad as Not Knowing the Reaction
This is where the real lesson for sales comes into play.
Whether you’re a brand new sales rep, or have been selling for years with the same company, the challenge of selling is being aware of the buyer’s reaction to the content or communications you’ve shared with them.
If you know the buyer isn’t at all interested after a communication with them, you can move away from that messaging.
If you know the buyer is very interested after a communication with them, you can redouble your efforts on that messaging.
Sales performance management is about more than knowing who made X number of cold calls and who closed the most deals last quarter, you need to know why and how certain communications are having the impact that they are.
When sales reps can come back to a conversation at a later date in the future, and add value to the discussion in a way that the buyer is well interested in, the quality of the sales process is improved significantly, and the sales rep positions as a trusted ally to the buyer in question.
And by that same token, when future sales calls fail to add value, and wastes the buyer’s time, the sales rep and the associated company are seen as less than valuable.
Getting the wrong reaction is all too easy, if you want to learn more about it, you might like to check out this post about the top 10 reasons content marketing damages the sales process.
Where Trump Went Wrong, and how Sales can Relate
Although it’s unfortunate that Trump had the outcome that he did, the worst crime would be to let this learning opportunity fade away.
Sending the Wrong Communication
For Trump, the wrong communication was the fateful line he made during the interview with CNN. He had many options with respect to the response he could make to the events of the night prior, but he chose to make that comment.
Regardless of whatever we think of the comment, the only opinion that mattered in this instance is that of the event organizer.
The battle for presidential candidacy is always going to have ugly moments, and Erick Erickson would have had expected some level of rebuttal to those events of the previous night. Trumps challenge is the balance his comments for maximum campaign impact and minimal negative fallout.
We know how it turned out.
For Sales Reps, this is any point of communication with the buyer. Because we’re moving towards an omni-channel approach, it doesn’t matter if this happens in an email, a phone call, in person, during a co-browsing or digital e-detailing session, and etc.
The opinion that matters is the lead/buyer you’re dealing with. They’re expecting you to be a value add to the decision journey. Obviously there is going to be an element of selfish communication as you try and sway the buyer to your product, but the trick is to balance a consultative approach that positions you as a trusted advisor, not someone only focused on a sale.
As many buyers now prefer to progress their own decision journey, this is something that is best achieved with supportive discussion, and effective digital content in all forms.
The digital content must not be self serving or overly technical. At the same time, the content needs to be in line with the pain points and needs of the lead/buyer at their specific decision journey point.
This delicate balance is something that many sales reps struggle with as digital content marketing makes its way to sales forces, and into every point of the sales process.
Tailoring content to purchase decision stages is a whole can of worms on its own, and if you’re interested in this topic, I invite you to check out this post about how to tailor digital content to purchase decision stages.
Getting the Wrong Reaction
For Trump, the comments he made were ill received, and the reaction was swift and absolute. He was uninvited to the event that many were attending and awaiting his arrival, he lost a potential platform to further solidify his position, and he damaged his stature as a professional candidate.
Whether this will significantly impact his campaign is another story, but this specific interaction was a lost cause.
Now, trump did make an effort to bandage his comments and clarify his statements, but the damage was already done.
If Trump had a way to understand the impact of his communications before the reaction hit, he could have seized the opportunity to clarify his statements before the outcome.
Unlike trump however, sales reps do have this key enabler.
For sales reps, getting the wrong reaction can lead to anything from something as minor as an uneventful sales call, to something as major as a lost sale, and everything in between.
Some buyers may forgive the poor communication, but in a highly competitive industry, you’ve succeeded in creating an opportunity for a competitor to delight the buyer instead.
Unlike Trump, even if your communication was completely off, and you focused on the wrong pain point, you can digital content consumption insights from sales analytics software to make things right before the buyer even has to ask you a second time.
This is the tool that Trump never had, but every sales rep can take advantage of.
When using digital content to make sales, sales enablement tools passively keep track of every communication and content piece that you’ve shared with the buyer. Their digital fingerprints are observed while they consume content that you’ve shared.
If you send a set of content pieces, and the buyer opens the content but spends little to no time examining any of it, you know there’s a problem.
You can immediately follow up with communication that supports the sales process and shows that you have a keen sense of the buyer’s motivation.
If you need a brief introduction into these kinds of insights, check out this blog about sales enablement KPIs, and how sales analytics software enhances content management.
Arguing with the Customer
For Trump, the outcome was met with a stern reaction. He blamed the event organizer for having misaligned objectives due to political correctness. He made a calculated effort to stand up to the uninvited order, while ensuring that females across America didn’t get the perception that Trump was making a derogatory comment about femininity in general
For sales reps, this kind of challenge is going to reflect a different kind of balancing act. As we’ve established above, there is no benefit to arguing with a customer, but there is value in standing your ground.
Remember that the empowered buyer is someone who actively seeks out knowledge, and may receive that information from the most unlikely of places. They could have information which could be inaccurate, invalid, out of date, or out of context.
As a sales rep, you need to realize that the buyer will have pre-conceived notions about the product. If your competitors use their marketing to frame needs in an opposing manner, you could see a reaction from the buyer that requires immediate nurturing, or risk losing them to that competitor.
Real sales enablement solutions allow a seller to adapt to these moments, and counter a buyer’s understanding with topically relevant content, and supportive dialogue.
When you can learn a buyer’s motivation and opinions, compile a digital content package in real time, share with them instantly, and continue the dialogue without an unnecessary stop in conversation, you immediately position as a reliable, well-prepared, trustworthy sales concierge.
This kind of essential reactiveness is exactly why sales training isn’t a long term solution to challenges of an empowered buyer. Sales reps need the tools and functionality to delight a buyer in real time. Check out this post about the 2 reasons that sales training fails to improve the sales process for more information about the real limitations of sales training for real sales enablement.
Data and analytics applied to digital sales aids is a future proof strategy that enables a sales rep to appear savvy, attentive, and trustworthy.
[RELATED CONTENT] If this kind of insight was something that interested you, I invite you to check out this whitepaper about data and analytics in the sales process.
If you’re new to sales enablement, and the changing role of sales. You may like to check out our blog post that answers the question: what is sales enablement? And provides a sales enablement definition for 2015. This whitepaper below may also interest you.
