Soft Sell, a Tainted Love?
Ok it’s a terrible pun to start a blog with, but please read on; at least you know it can’t get any worse!
Here at New Results Training we are always thinking about our soft sell approach and I mean ALWAYS thinking about it. Whatever we are doing, we ask ourselves “does this fit with our selling ethos as a company and trainers?” We do this because we truly believe in creating a soft selling culture in everything we do.
As an example of significant cultural shift, look at HR (Human Resources). I am old enough to remember the old Personnel Departments when I first started my employed career. A few years ago, there was a move from Personnel to HR. Some organisations’ shift in focus went no further than digging out the screwdriver and changing the name on an office door. Other organisations thought about the cultural shift, retrained teams, communicated clearly to their employees and customers, as well as shifting their approach to supporting employees in their business. This was a well thought out move to a new way of doing business.
When it comes to the soft sell approach, lots of people we meet talk about it, but when we scratch the surface it’s the same old sales tactics (pushy hard sales) that they used. This “saying one thing and doing something completely different” taints your customer’s experience of a so called Soft Sell approach. Lots of people don’t like and certainly don’t trust sales people based on their own previous experience. To create trust we must do what we say we will do; we must live and breathe soft selling if that is how we want the world to see us.
If you really want to be a hit with your customers, you must look at the core culture of your organisation. It’s not just swapping a name out; it’s looking at every single thing you do or say and asking yourself, is this soft selling? If not, your customers may just, “Say hello and wave goodbye”.
Have a look here at our other soft selling articles
We are always happy to sit down and discuss this approach with others and give that all important external view on what you do.
Happy (soft) selling!