Does Electronic Age Presage the Death of the Salesman? I don't think so!

Does the Electronic Age Presage the Death of the Salesperson?
I don’t think so!

To sell Mr. Blue what Mr. Blue will buy, you must see Mr. Blue through Mr. Blue’s eyes.

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© August 2005

Everyone is in sales!

More than a decade ago, when the craze was for just-in-time (JIT) retailing, and businesses were in a constant state of flux, the answer was to get things to people quickly, keep inventories bare to the bone, and sell goods and services at discount prices.

This strategy prophesized “the fall of the mall.” JIT became the theme of day for practically every kind of business. Then, along came the Internet erasing the human factor further with the selling of everything from handbags to luxury automobiles with the click of a mouse. Yet, against this tide, thousands of malls continue to be constructed across the nation, while discount stores flourish despite this electronic convenience.

True, discounters use computers to organize and manipulate vast storehouses of information on the buying public. People are sorted out to the nth detail. Not only can discounters sort people socio-economically, and demographically, but they also track when people buy and what they buy to the time of day, and day of the week. It is a numbers game and people have been sanitized and neutralized to inanimate algorithms.

Big Brother is not only here. Big Brother has a store named after him. It is called Wal-Mart.

It would seem, on the surface, electronics have introduced not only a paperless factory but also a people-less marketing and merchandising system. What could be more cost effective, more hygienic than reducing people to clear, clean, blue numbers? I don’t think this is it because as successful as Big Brother and its imitators are, all is not well in cyberspace.

* * *

People still remain the final link in the food chain of buying and selling, but they don’t always wear a big “S” for salesperson on their chests.

For example, you can tell how strong or weak a company is by how well its selling image holds up. The health of a company is reflected in the people who greet customers, stack the shelves or racks, run the registers, clean the floors, answer the phones, and help shoppers find the merchandise. These sales people without portfolio are the company.

Cracks are imminent in this selling image when Big Brother has twenty-two registers available but only cashiers attending five. Long lines of customers waiting to pay for purchases do not suggest a good omen. Nor do slippery or dirty floors; merchandise blocking aisles, or employees standing around chatting rather than helping customers.

Cracks are apparent when employees launch class action suits against the company for discrimination and promotional biases. Looming on the horizon is a union ready to nip at Big Brother’s Achilles heel. No company of any size can prosper when it loses the trust of its employees at any level in the food chain. Conversely, no company is likely to fail when such trust is enjoyed.

* * *

This insight came to me quite by accident when I was a young chemical sales engineer. A company’s health was transparent by the manner in which I was greeted by the receptionist and plant security. Those initial contacts were invariably confirmed with subsequent contacts in plant engineering, research, and purchasing. The consistency with which this behavior was demonstrated up and down the food chain was so alarming I would write about it (Confident Selling Prentice-Hall 1970).

If people are the most compelling factor in the selling equation, then the most compelling force is trust. Trust cannot be put in a box, labeled and secured in a database. People don’t fit well into the tiny boxes we might presume they belong. The boxes we construct for people are likely to be similar to the boxes from which we view the world.

Wonderful as JIT delivery, and electronic data collection and retrieval may be, these processes are essentially people-less. Trust is not. Trust is a mindset that penetrates barriers of routine, cynicism, doubt, confusion, conflict and fear, and requires human engagement.

* * *

Nothing is more human than selling. We think selling cosmetics to a suburban housewife is different than selling polymers to an oil refinery. Well, it isn’t. Obviously, the buyers have discernible differences, yet the trust issue they hold in common. Paying attention generates trust, and signals respect, which has become as rare as snow in July.

There has been change. People have changed. Tastes have changed. Marketing and distribution have become more corporate, impersonal and electronic, but people still respond best to the personal touch. Everyone now is a sales tactician whatever he or she does.

It starts with paying attention!

The key to an authentic perspective is attention. Perspective (buyer’s point of view) leads to a reliable perception (buyer’s sensitivity). Perception then leads to discernible trust (buyer’s confidence). Trust is the ultimate key to effective persuasion (buyer’s decision-making).

Paying attention is not an easy task when most minds today wander like smoke. Yet, without attention, there is no chance for viable connection. The seller is in control only when the buyer is talking and disclosing information, not the other way around. This allows the seller to pay attention as words flow from want to need to decision. Notice there is no place for intimidation in the process; no cute mechanics; no shallow bravado; no hasty defensiveness, but of equal partners in quest of the same thing: satisfaction.

Satisfaction is not an easy quest because potential partners come from disparate cultures, cultures that cloud lenses, fog vision, and impair hearing. Paying attention demands the seller be a student of his or her culture, so that it doesn’t get in the way, and a learner of the buyer’s culture, so that it can be used to a successful conclusion.

A walk down cultural lane!


As with every generation, what the twenty-first century generation shares in common is its values, beliefs, interests, expectations, appetites, and dreams; in a word, its culture.

Culture defines the character of the times. This in turn defines the generation as to who, what, why and where it sees itself as being. Each generation plays “hide and seek” games with reality. One generation may hide from reality, because it can, while another may seek it, because it has no choice. The only safe haven is trust, and this bond never changes. It gets inside contrasting gamesmanship to genuine caring. To fully appreciate culture generationally requires an entire book. That is not the aim here.

The purpose here is to point out how evolving trust leads to persuasion and confident buying. Trust is built with and around people of a time, a fact that never changes. And trust is a matter of perspective, perception and persuasion, and always in that chronology.

Likewise, morality is in the mind of the times. While this must be understood, it follows that it may prove unnerving as one generation can become judgmental while another defensive. When the seller becomes judgmental or defensive, the process is in trouble. The question should come to mind: whom does the process serve? Generational problems are real, as we tend to see the same things differently depending on our cultural lenses. Consider this changing cultural landscape over recent times.

* * *

People born early in the twentieth century came of age with the Great Depression. As a consequence, they didn’t trust banks, hated to see waste of any kind, scorned ostentation, considered sacrifice their lot, and lived mainly through their children. They were close to the earth, as most were in farming, and felt close to God for it. They wanted value for their money, and were not moved by labels or brand names, and had no time for celebrities.

There was radio, but no television. The imagination kidnapped its sound and visualized its images through the mind’s eye. Life revolved around family, church, and community. People remembered when women couldn’t vote, when there wasn’t a federal income tax, when prohibition came and went, when the government stepped in with such programs as the WPA, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and World War II changed their lives and place in the world.

Children of this generation, born in the 1930s, were programmed to be disciplined, dutiful, respectful, polite, loyal and obedient to authority. Young people were encouraged to acquire an education and make a good living. This meant spending most of their time working, allowing little time for leisure. Feeling guilty and resentful, they came to wonder why they had been so trusting, for the bond they had had with their parents no longer existed with their own offspring. To compensate, they spoiled their children, not by spending tons of time with them, but tons of money on them.

These children, born after World War II, became known as the baby boomers, or “spoiled brat” generation for their self-indulgence and narcissism. An unpopular war (Viet Nam) followed. This gave rise to “the age of anxiety” in a climate of moral uncertainty. The birth control pill, “make love not war,” and life without limits derailed righteous continuity and consistency with the dynamics of constant change. Conspicuous consumption became therapy for an anxious age. Tie-dye rags as clothes, and psychedelic drugs as a means of escape became staples of a disenfranchised youth movement alienated from suburbia, while the classroom became a battle zone.

These baby boomers are now moving into their golden years determined never to grow old never having found time to grow up. A progression from youth to middle age finds their youthful anti-materialistic idealism now morphing into aging materialism fortified with toys -- luxury boats and cars, second homes, and affluent lifestyles. Now, they desire to live rich even if they aren’t, to dress well even if they can’t afford it, and to gamble on the future, dreaming of winning the lottery to solve all their woes. They have had trouble with relationships often taking a spiritual hiatus with a menu of mystical offerings in a smorgasbord of the esoteric, as conventional religion has lost its appeal, while they dance to the cadence and ape the lyrics of their favorite celebrities. Imitation has acquired the legitimacy of an art form, while originality has taken a holiday.

Now baby boomer’s children are having twenty-first century babies. Who do these new parents trust and what do they value?

It would appear these new parents are cynical and their values are all over the place. Since toddlers, they have had it drummed into their heads “you need a degree to get ahead.” They weren’t informed that education required them to become students. So, they have acquired degrees without learning to read and write and calculate beyond rudimentary skills. They experienced the drudgery of education but never the joy of learning. It is reflected in what gives them pleasure - spending money; how they spend their spare time - preoccupied with self-perfection; their greatest desires - discovering miraculous cures for all their lifestyle excesses; and their manner of escape - watching reality television and the soaps.

These twenty something young people are concerned with how much does it pay; how much does it cost? They have been reared on the narcotic, television. Television is a constant commercial to have it now. Delayed gratification has no place in the equation. This has made college a degree factory, a career the best paying job, and life’s purpose getting rather than giving.

Television was their babysitter when they were in their nappies. Everything on it is resolved within the hour. Now, they cannot stand a room without noise or eat a meal without it blaring away. They think nothing of buying plasma screen televisions that cost well in the four figures when they can barely make ends meet. They gain most of their entertainment and information from television. If they read at all, it is likely to be celebrity, health, glamour or electronic game magazines. Now, many are addicted to the Internet and email, which are tools that have already been reduced to toys.

A Psychographics Profile, or How it can be used to advantage!

Each generation has a psychographics profile. This profile relates to the buyer’s personality, geography and demographics, and revolves around the process of perspective, perception, trust, and persuasion. These are fundamental to buying decisions whatever the generational predilections.

It is the relationship of these factors that gives life to the selling situation. To know a prospective buyer, the seller must not only be aware of these indices but also know how to use them.

* * *

An entrepreneur sells luxury custom made automobiles that cost in the neighborhood of $250,000, give or take $10,000. He is a baby boomer with a passion for these machines, and has gambled mightily that many others are as well. He is frustrated. The cars are not selling, yet he knows there are “tons of potential buyers out there.” He has hired marketing consultants who have provided him with reams of demographic and marketing data to no avail. They have succeeded in obfuscating the issue because they see buyers as prospects to be manipulated, and not persons to be culturally understood. The entrepreneur is right. There are buyers out there, but not necessarily exactly like he is.

A specific psychographics profile means paying attention to the buyer as a person of a specific cultural orientation and perspective. Let us consider the luxury automobile prospect in that context.

Perspective

Money and brains: The assumption is that if you have money it took brains to acquire it. Should the seller, one who has spent long years acquiring a formal education make this assumption of the buyer, based on his own wealth creation, which was with diligence, cunning, and tenacity, he might be wrong. The source of wealth and how it was acquired is as important as the wealth itself in defining the person.

A self-made man who is an entrepreneur with little formal education may be thoroughly familiar with, as well as interested in, all the nuts and bolts that make up such a beautiful machine; and then the buyer may not. The neighbor of this entrepreneur, incidentally, never graduated from high school, but is a millionaire in waste management. To judge him by the way he dresses and talks, away from his fine home, you might mistake him for a panhandler. Yet, how what he is listens provides a more certain perspective.

Inherited wealth, on the other hand, may consider the luxury machine a trophy to add to its collection to savor and dazzle friends, or it may not.

A person, who listens to National Public Radio, and is a fan of its classical music, may be a different buyer than a devotee to country western music; and again he or she may not.

The buyer’s favorite magazine may be the Auto Trader or The Atlantic Monthly. This could be a clue as to how to approach the buyer, or it may not.

Where the buyer lives, the car he or she drives, where he or she shops, and whether into gourmet food and fine wines may be another clue, and again it may not.

The point is that money and brains are elusive when it comes to perspective. They may elicit consistent or conflicting clues as to how the person thinks and dreams, and how a luxury automobile fits into such dreams.

Therefore, the seller must table all assumptions and listen for the pattern that develops, as surely it will, if the seller allows the buyer to dominate the conversation. It is the only way the seller can control the process, and assess the relevance of money and brains in the negotiation. The seller learns nothing when talking. The luxury automobile creates a hesitation dance between potential lovers, and like all such romances much is written and revealed between the lines.

The seller, in this case, referred to buyers as he’s. True to form, there were no “she’s” on his prospect list.


Perception

Symbols and sensibilities: A luxury car can be a trade off: delayed gratification for a life of sacrifice, or permission for self-indulgence because it now can be afforded.

A luxury car as fantasy object might personify the unachievable perfect woman for the man; and the most romantic mate for the women, or it might be a fantasy wish for improving the odds of both, or none of these.

A luxury automobile could be, for the seller as much as the buyer, a manifest addiction not unlike gambling, carousing, drinking or taking drugs, a passion most twisted with no prudent restrain.

To be in control, the seller must therefore be dispassionate to manage the process and see the buyer most clearly. Not until the buyer is perceived clearly can the seller assay the buyer’s motivation and commitment. Otherwise, the seller and buyer are sliding down a slippery slope of promises impossible to meet.

The seller can never fall into the rhythm of the buyer’s adulation of the machine. Instead, the seller must get inside the praise, feel it, roll it around in the mind and feed it back as a hook in the sale:

· Buyer: The truth is I love this machine.
· Seller: Tell me how you love it.

The seller then gets a glimpse into the buyer’s mind at that moment. Like in romance, secrets lay under the surface and never too deeply.

Luxury objects are symbols, symbols of passion, justification, reinforcement, status or indulgence. The buyer may not know this but that doesn’t stop him or her from confessing. Clarification for the seller in this fencing match can lead to conviction for the buyer if the seller has the patience to allow the process to develop.

Then again, the motivation could be more complex. It may be inconceivable to the seller that the machine is not a love object to the buyer. Yet, the possibility exists that the buyer has little direct interest in the machine, as such, but is considering it a gift, as an expression of love the buyer feels incapable of expressing otherwise. This cannot be overlooked. If love of the machine happens to be the passion of the seller, it could blind the seller to correctly perceive symbols and sensibilities of the buyer.

A luxury car, by definition is something not needed, but greatly desired by someone, but not necessarily the buyer. If diamonds are women’s best friends, then it follows luxury automobiles have the same meaning to men, but not always so.

The why of symbols and sensibilities may never be clearly understood, by either the seller or buyer, for they float between them in the intrigue of silent language. It is the language of seduction without a vocabulary. It speaks as the buyer glides a hand over the machine’s body, caresses its upholstery, inhales the aroma of its leather, wonders with greedy eyes to the tantalizing secrets of its engine design, and feels its quiet power vibrate through a hand placed on the hood as its engine roars.

There is a moment of total vulnerability, when symbols and sensibilities erupt into a euphoric flash point, and the buyer is exposed, naked. This is when the paperwork should appear without preamble, for just as quickly the moment is gone.

Trust

Shooting stars: The luxury car may be surrogate for the child the buyer never had, or the happy home that never materialized. It may also be the answer to a middle age crisis of waning powers. Chances are the buyer has had a romance with the automobile since early in life. Now, the buyer is ready to cure “the disease” because it no longer is beyond reach. This is a moment of ecstasy craving for denouement, as the buyer is ready to abandon economic constrains, and lift off to another life.

This ecstasy may erupt in the mind in a burst of euphoria like a shooting star, echoing the mantra, “I deserve it; I’ve earned it; I can afford it; I must have it!”

Caution goes to the wind. Instinct fills the void with self-trust. Self-trust reminds the buyer of his or her generous nature, and spiritual goodness. Want, need, value, decision, and fulfillment coalesce into conviction and completion.

The mind is filled with a happiness not realized before. The buyer’s mental ledger is filled with a plethora of self-aggrandizing positives: active church membership, volunteer work, charity contributions, pro bono services, personal sacrifices, and many other marvels of the buyer as self-congratulating hero.

Internal warring is tabled if not resolved. The seller’s tacit approval of the buyer as hero gives the buyer permission to merit adding this luxury machine to the trophy case.

At this point, the seller has to find the key to complete the sale. The seller cannot afford to get caught up in the euphoria, postponing the closing. Nor can the seller wax banal in senseless rhetoric: “This high power baby will open up a world to you that you only suspected was there. Every minute you’re gliding down the road will be like dreaming for an hour.” Saccharine redundancy is not the key. Literally, the key is putting the buyer in the driver’s seat, which is a trust issue most personal, of the seller as much as the buyer, and declaring, “Take it for a spin.” This is not done at the beginning of the process, which often happens, but when this thoughtful, patient, and demanding process outlined here is achieved to the satisfaction of the seller, and the commitment of the buyer is apparently a fait accompli.

The key is a trust issue. Trust must be established before the vehicle has any chance of moving off the lot, permanently. This trust issue is first of the buyer with the buyer before it is between the seller and the buyer. Aborting the process described here by putting the keys in the hand of the buyer as soon as the buyer appears is depending on the inanimate machine to do the selling. This is not only folly, but also an exercise of distrust and self-deception on the part of the seller. Confident selling is a matter of self-trust. Self-trust is displayed in the patience, discipline, and yes, courage of the seller to allow the process to develop naturally. The seller is not afraid of human engagement.

We all carry symbols to reflect our goodness, our character, our interests, our passions, and our successes. You know trust is no longer an issue when the buyer opens up. We advertise ourselves. Such puff allows the shooting star to continue to soar.

We trust shooting stars to realize our destiny, which we want to believe is always on the rise. The seller calibrates this most carefully to realize a sale.

* * *

A brilliant engineering manager was hesitating to purchase an expensive chemical system I was attempting to sell him. The plant was his life, more like a home than anything else, as he was there all hours of the day and night. Finally, I said, after completing this process, “You deserve it.”

It was as if my words broke him out of a swoon. “Pardon me,” he said looking up. At that moment, I could imagine what this new system could mean to him, as I studied his face. We had been studying blueprints of this chemical system, carefully plotting its intricate functions to the finest detail. He was a verbal man, and devoured the blueprints.

“I was just thinking,” I continued. “You’ve carried this operation on your back for years. Now, you deserve some help, some relief to do other things, to not have to fear that call in the middle of the night to put the system back on line.”

His face grew flush, his eyes moist, as he turned away in embarrassment. Silence held us both in its embrace for what seemed interminable, until finally he said, “Do it!” Another seller might be embarrassed by his display of emotions; I used it. Another seller might feel empathy and say something inane to neutralize the kinetic energy; I chose to ride it. Another seller might sense something wrong: I felt it couldn’t be more right.

Perspective, perception, and trust put seller and buyer both on the same side of the table. Trust made buyer and seller one. As one, boldness must rule over timidity with silence a weapon in its arsenal. Did this happen in one call? No, it took the better part of a year.

Persuasion

Minds and minding: Some buyers are well traveled; others are big readers; still others are active sports enthusiasts, hobbyists, radio listeners, music lovers, film aficionados, students of life and learning, or have no life outside the job, as with the buyer just described. He was trapped in his circumstances and had not thought before that he deserved an escape.

You cannot pigeonhole a buyer by how he looks and speaks, or even how the buyer routinely behaves. But you can learn how a buyer thinks, how the mind works, by allowing its character to register intuitively. The gut knows long before the head understands.

A match must occur, in any case, between what is already in the buyer’s mind with the information presented to approach understanding. Understanding does not signify agreement, but puts seller and buyer on the same page to manage differences.

Agreement takes something beyond this matching and that is the arousal to lift the buyer beyond the present mindset. Parting with money is an emotional experience. Buying is never dictated by logic, although justified with it after the fact. No matter how cool and reasonable a buyer may seem, at the moment of commitment, logic is abandoned to enter the area of risk, where trust resides.

Mind and minding start with the seller. The seller’s emotions must be suitably neutral to correctly gauge the buyer’s. Therefore, the seller has no room for false assumptions. The seller cannot assume, for example, that the buyer is competent to make this purchase until supportive evidence surfaces. The seller must never assume the buyer knows as much about the seller’s product. The seller must never talk down, up, or at the buyer but with the buyer. And the seller must never panic, argue, or become defensive even if egged on by the buyer. The lone assumption that is germane to the process is the seller has the buyer’s best interests at heart. This is not stated but demonstrated.

The reason listening is so critical is that most information is effectively communicated either visually (55 percent) or vocally (38 percent) with very little registering verbally (7 percent).

Mind and minding measure the buyer’s responses and translates what is said to what is meant. For example, the buyer’s says, “I can’t afford this baby (luxury car), but maybe some day. That is why I answered the ad.”

Translation: convince me I am wrong. Often, what we say is precisely the opposite of what we mean. The seller would be wise to feedback the buyer’s words: “I can’t afford this baby?” This pressures the buyer to explain what he or she actually means?

The seller is in control when the buyer is forced to get inside banalities to surface where the buyer’s mind actually is. Viewing the luxury automobile may only be a fishing expedition fed by curiosity. The seller can find this out only by forcing the buyer to explain the meaning of such words as the process unfolds.

Even though most information is taken through the eyes and ears, some buyers are voracious readers and information needy. The buyer may have done considerable research on the vehicle, and desires to acquire even more definitive information. True, this could be a stalling tactic, or represent indecision, or a non-buyer. If true, it suggests a flaw somewhere in the process (perspective, perception, trust and persuasion).

Some verbal buyers like to cut to the chase and have the bottom line spelled out succinctly. Such buyers have done their homework and are ready to make a decision. Visual buyers, on the other hand, want to be shown the machine before doing anything else, while vocal buyers might want to enjoy the ambience of “talking cars” to avoid reaching the decision-making stage.

Still other buyers play it so close to the vest that there is little chance to read them. They are not only remote from the seller but from themselves as well. Two-thirds of what they think is buried below the surface, but the other one-third counts heavily. It favors the seller because the buyer is there. The buyer is in fact looking at this luxury automobile. Still, the buyer may go to the dance many times before the buyer takes anything home. The fact that the buyer eventually does is what makes a seller’s patience golden.

* * *

At a time when it appears electronic space is going to eclipse selling, pesky reality defies this in so many ways. Technology changes, fads appear and disappear, but the psychographics of buyers and sellers, strangely, change very little.

People continue to make the difference in the micro and macro sense. Whatever the level, if people know how to observe and learn, then the key is in their hands to unlock that mystifying door between buyer and seller, echoing the sentiment, “To sell Mr. Blue what Mr. Blue will buy, you must see Mr. Blue through Mr. Blue’s eyes.”

* * * * *

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D., an O/I psychologist, is also an author, consultant, and former international executive. Website: www.peripateticphilosopher.com. Email: TheDeltaGrpFL@cs.com.