Great Sales Habits - Talk We, Not Me
Written by Kevin Sasser on February 13, 2008. Leave a Comment on this Post.
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There’s a great beer commercial in which a reporter is in the locker room after a game attempting to interview an extremely self-centered and egotistical football player.
After hearing the player drone on about his individual accomplishments, with absolutely no acknowledgment of his teammates contributions, the reporter retorts that “there’s no “I” in TEAM”, to which the player replies “Yeah? well there’s no “WE” either”.
When discussing your solution, stay away from personal pronouns such as “Me, My, I, etc.” and replace with “We, Our, Together, etc.”.
This will help you in building a comfort level with the prospect that you are representing a solid and established provider, instead of some guy who works out of the trunk of his car.
For example
Instead of “I will check on that“, try “My team will check the details and I will report back to you”
Instead of “I will not be beat on price“, try “Let’s work together to come up with a solution that fits your needs, then we’ll try to make the numbers fit within your budget”
Instead of “Here are our contracts, sign them, fax them back“, try “Here are our agreements - if you have any questions, members of our Executive Team will be available to provide assistance.”
In the majority of sales cycles you are actually proposing the opportunity to start a business partnership. By framing your pitch, proposals, and general messaging around language that encompasses others, including the prospect, it will be easier to build the vision that your company is committed to their long-term success.
Why is this important?
If you are selling into a larger organization, your prospect will have to put his or her internal reputation and credibility on the line to recommend your solution.
If your competitors include household names such as Microsoft, IBM, or GE or other industry leaders, then building your prospect’s confidence that your smaller organization is prepared and committed to serve the needs of the prospect will be critical
The I to WE speak is something that can change your outlook the teams outlook and your potential sales increase. I often speak to leaders about changing meeting language to the We and us terms - not just when things are going bad - especially when things are going good. A great activity to do is count the amount of times your bosss or person trying to sell you something says I or me compared to the us or we.
Personally, when a vendor/supplier calls on me, I expect him/her to say ” I will get back to you …” or ” I’ll check on that and …” or ” I’ll see to it that it get’s done and …”
I don’t want his/her team to be accountable for it, I want him or her to be accountable.
When a sales rep takes full accountability by saying, ” I will get it done. ” I feel WAY more secure. If he/she leaves the door to blaming someone else by saying ” We”, I look for failure, just because he/she has left a way out.
I ALWAYS tell my customers that ” I ” will see to it that the task gets done and I have tremendous loyalty from my customers because of it.
Sometimes I beats We like a drum. Sometimes.
It’s the accountability element that bugs me about the “WE” approach as well. Maybe a combination would work - Kevin puts that in one of his examples:
Instead of “I will check on that“, try “My team will check the details and I will report back to you.
It’s the *WE* power combined with the *I* accountability. Might be worth a thought.
Hey Jan - I’m trying to learn how to not be so adamant in my comments, that’s why I put “sometimes”. ;-)
I’m inclined to agree with you, but am fairly old-school, so I’d still want the sales rep to say ” I’ll check …”
But the We/I’ll scenario seems to be better than plain ol’ We, for sure.
I’ll suggest that in some industries We is okay and in some I is a much better way.
Great discussion either way.
Thank you for commenting Mike,
The value of “We Speak” is not using it to avoid responsibility and accountability but more of a tactic, and mindset, in letting the prospective client know that there is more than just “you” (the sales rep) involved in making the purchase of your solution a positive experience.
I also use We Speak in contract negotiations in the tone of “You want/need to buy my solution”, “I really want to sell it to you”, “if we work together on the pricing and contract we can make this happen”.
It took a good many losses to larger competitors before I started to be a believer in this. We were a small company (10mil in rev) vs. MSFT, IBM, and Oracle. Sometimes “We” meant my entire company.
Take care.
Sasser
I tried to leave an opening Kevin, as I was sure that certain industries respond better to certain stimuli better than others.
In my industry, I would beat We like a borrowed mule !
In others, maybe yours, I would wouldn’t work nearly as well.
Thanks for giving us something to think about.