When your manager asks you to lie

Published: Wed, 01/31/24

January 31, 2024

TOGETHER WITH

Welcome back to The Quota, the only sales-focused reprieve from your sales job (how is that even possible, right!?) In this week’s issue, we’ll take a look at when you should use facts to sell and when you should use emotion, share a Sales Fail about ghosting a prospect, and give some advice to a rep who is being asked to lie. Bon appetit.

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

70% of salespeople stop at one email.

Source: Invesp

SALES ROUNDUP

Here’s what’s happening in the sales world this week:

Vroom, the once-mighty Carvana competitor, is throwing in the towel, shutting down its online car sales business. The company stated that "Vroom has halted all purchases and sales of used vehicles. We are discontinuing Vroom's e-commerce operations and winding down our used vehicle dealership business." They’re expected to lay off 800 employees. You can read more about it here.
Salesforce is cutting about 700 workers, adding to a brutal string of tech layoffs at the start of 2024. Less than 1% of workers will be cut, according to a person familiar with the plans. The San Francisco-based company had 70,843 workers as of the end of October, according to a securities filing. You can read more about it here.

FEATURE

Image: Rawpixel/shutterstock.com

When to use emotions to make a sale, and when to use straight facts

As a sales rep and (at least occasional) consumer, you might feel that when making purchases, you make rational decisions based on facts like price, quality, timing, and availability.

But according to Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman, author of How Customers Think, emotion plays a big role in how we buy, with 95% (!!!) of our purchasing decisions coming from our subconscious (Freud would be proud). As a salesperson, keeping this in mind while talking to customers can make the difference between winning or losing a deal.

Zaltman found that rather than using data to inform decision making, customers tend to come to their own conclusions based on intuition, and then use facts to help justify their decision making. This is a completely human reaction, as we tend to think of ourselves as rational human beings while trusting our instincts.

Whether you lead with a fact-based or emotion-based approach in your sales process should be determined by your product and which type of buyer you’re selling to. Here are some tips:

When to use a fact-based approach

When selling simple, easy-to-understand, low-priced products
When selling to an analytical buyer

If you’re selling a straightforward product that your customer understands, you can stick to the facts. This customer is most likely going to be more analytical in their decision making and choose the option they believe has the best mix of price and quality based on their needs or preferences. Oftentimes, these types of sales are more transactional, have a shorter cycle, and don’t require much relationship building.

When to use an emotion-based approach

When selling complex products or services
When selling solution to complex problems
When selling in a highly competitive market

If you’re selling a complex product that has a lot of detailed features or solves a complex problem, your customer is often weighing different pros and cons for their purchase and how it could affect their business or their personal life. These types of purchasing decisions are typically less cut-and-dried, and there are often many factors at play, some that your customer will tell you about upfront, and some that you (and they) may not even be aware of. It’s your job to uncover your customers' motivations and goals so you can tailor your approach.

Using an emotion-based sales approach can be your competitive advantage. If you’re up against tough competition, who might beat you “on paper” with a better price or even a better product, you can still come out on top if you understand your customers' motivations or fears.

Did they just get promoted to a new role where they’re in charge of more budget? Maybe they’re concerned with the risks of looking foolish in front of their new boss if they pick the wrong solution. Are they the type of person who likes to feel like they ‘won’ the negotiation? Do they need to show that they negotiated cost savings to their boss? These are all things to be aware of and to use to appeal to their emotions and win the deal.

However, emotion-based sales pitches can backfire. You don’t want to overdo it. Be careful not to make your customer feel like they’re in a high-pressure sales pitch, or that you’re disingenuously trying to build rapport while appealing to their professional or personal goals.

It’s also important to tailor your approach depending on who you’re talking to. For example, you may try to appeal to the emotional side of the person who will be using your product, and use a more fact-based approach later in the sales process when talking to the final decision maker, like the CFO or whoever is writing the check.

$47 MILLION IN ARTWORK SALES EQUALS PROFITS FOR THESE EVERYDAY INVESTORS

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When Masterworks sells a painting – like the 16 it's already sold – investors reap their portion of the net proceeds. Its investors have already received proceeds from more than $47 million in sales, realizing annualized net returns of 17.8%, 21.5%, 35% and more.

Now, Masterworks wants to do the same thing for you. By qualifying every offering with the SEC, Masterworks makes it easy for everyday people to invest in multi-million dollar paintings. Offerings can sell out in just minutes, but as a trusted partner, The Quota readers can skip the waitlist to join here.

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*Past performance is not indicative of future returns, investing involves risk. See disclosures masterworks.com/cd

MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram -- Sales Humor

QUIZ

Which famous CEO was once fired from his job as a salesman at a computer store?

A. Steve Jobs
B. Marc Benioff
C. Mark Cuban
D. Mark Zuckerberg

SALES FAILS

Each week, we bring you the most cringe-worthy sales moments from across the web. To submit your sales fail story for consideration, click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

This didn’t happen to me, but to a guy at my company. It’s even funnier if you know this guy, who is kind of unintentionally hilarious. He is very likable but a bit awkward and doesn’t always follow social cues. But somehow he is actually a very good sales rep.

Anyway, what happened was this: he had a sales call scheduled with a pretty big client. He had worked hard getting into this account, and this was maybe the third or fourth meeting with some of the higher-up decision makers involved. When it came time for the meeting, he didn’t make it.

Later on, I heard what happened from our sales manager, who literally couldn’t stop laughing while he told me the story. Basically, a half hour before the call, the sales rep found a weird looking skin tag on his arm. And he got so fixated on trying to figure out what it was that he completely spaced the meeting because he was online looking stuff up.

Thankfully, the skin thing wasn’t anything serious, but he definitely lost the client because he ghosted them for the meeting. Management didn’t even bother to give him a hard time about it because they thought it was so funny. We are both still at the company.

Anonymous Location withheld

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: LinkedIn Poll -- January 2024

WORTH A PEEK

Ever gotten any sales advice that left you scratching your head? Like most of us, you’ve probably heard some doozies. HubSpot recently published an article with 5 terrible pieces of sales advice, and what to do instead. It’s a fun read. Check it out here.

ASK THE QUOTA

Want to submit a question and be featured in our advice column? Click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Dear Quota Team

I just got my first sales job less than six months ago. This has been something I wanted for a long time. I switched out of the trades route to take this job after getting in through a friend of a friend.

At first I thought it would be amazing, but it turns out that it’s not what I expected. My manager expects me to lie to customers. They are not “big” lies, but they are definitely untruths. He also wants me to indirectly lie by leaving certain details out when I am selling.

What should I do? I feel like if I don’t do what my manager asks, he will get rid of me. But I don’t want to lie to people especially when they are trusting me with their money. Do you have any advice?

Conflicted in Location Withheld

Dear Conflicted,

If you’re working a job where you’re being asked to lie, you’re not really working a sales job, it’s something else. And if it comes down to lying to prospects vs. finding somewhere else to work, it’s not a difficult choice.

It’s a whole lot easier to find a different job than it is to end up on the local or national news because you and your company got caught lying to customers, AND you get the added benefit of being able to sleep at night! Always do the right thing. Good luck.

Quiz Answer: C. Mark Cuban was fired from his job as a salesman at a computer store — (you can read the source article here)

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Today's email was written by Ken Kupchik, Erica Furgiuele, Steve Rado, and Emily Hill.

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