Heretical thoughts on sales

I have been selling for most of my career. Ideas, strategies, campaigns, creative work, projects, expertise and, occasionally, myself. I just spent much of that career with titles that didn't contain the word sales, which may be why I have developed some mildly heretical opinions about it.

For starters, you do not need a deck until you do. PowerPoint is comforting because it gives everyone something to look at while avoiding the terrifying possibility of having an actual conversation. If you don't know why you are talking to this particular person, slide 14 about your unique methodology probably isn't going to save you.

And don't flatter yourself about why they took the meeting. People take sales calls because they are bored. Because you offered. Because their calendar looked empty and an hour with a vendor makes them look busy. Because they are curious. Because they want free advice. Because saying yes was easier than saying no. Sometimes they are genuinely considering buying something, which is obviously excellent news, but you should probably find out which situation you are in before firing up the company credentials.

The first job is therefore not to pitch. It is to discover whether there is anything here. Why are we talking? Why now? Is something actually happening in the business? Is there a problem, an ambition, money, urgency, curiosity or merely forty-five minutes that needed killing? If there is nothing there, manufacturing enthusiasm for your proposition won't magically create a sales opportunity.

Desperation reeks particularly badly at this point. When you need the deal, every polite nod starts looking like buying intent. You agree too quickly, pitch too broadly and desperately attach your offering to whatever the other person happens to mention. Suddenly your revolutionary consultancy can solve procurement software, employer branding and probably erectile dysfunction if they have the budget. Neediness doesn't make you persuasive. It makes you suspicious.

Talk about money early. Not necessarily by opening with your day rate, but early enough to find out whether everyone inhabits the same commercial universe. What does the problem cost? Is there a budget? What would solving it be worth? What kind of investment are we actually discussing? I have never understood the elaborate B2B courtship where everybody knows the eventual purpose is to exchange money but mentioning money before the fourth meeting is considered terribly forward.

Then listen for opportunities and pounce. The thing someone buys is not necessarily the thing you came to sell. People mention problems in passing. They complain about processes, competitors, suppliers and things they wish they could do. They quite literally tell you where it hurts, and astonishingly often the salesperson responds by continuing to the next slide.

That is when you stop and ask.

A depressingly large amount of selling consists of noticing that another human has just told you what they might buy. Actual selling requires curiosity, timing, listening, commercial judgement and enough confidence to abandon your carefully prepared pitch when the conversation reveals something more valuable.

Which brings us to the CRM. Filling it sucks. It is administrative vegetables. Nobody enjoys entering the same information into six mandatory fields because somebody wants a dashboard to turn green. Unfortunately, not knowing where your money comes from sucks considerably more. Without some discipline, opportunities disappear, follow-ups become archaeology, forecasts become astrology and six months later everyone has a different explanation for why revenue went up or down.

So yes, update the fucking CRM.

Sales is surrounded by an enormous amount of machinery, but the core of it remains wonderfully human: find out why you're actually talking, don't mistake politeness for intent, don't smell desperate, discuss money like an adult, listen for the opportunity and move when you hear it.

And when the moment finally comes where a deck would genuinely help, have a good one.