Don’t Assume, Ask!

Becoming a Better Sales Rep — Post #38

Introduction.

Sales is such an incredibly fast-paced profession and all of us sales professionals are consistently being evaluated on our performance that we try to make everything as efficient as possible.

And, I’m not advocating against this. However, there’s a consequence, one should be very aware of: false assumptions.

The easiest thing to do when you don’t know something and you’re completely swamped with the process is to make a best guess. But, if you never double-check your best guesses, you might make terrible mistakes. Sometimes, even over and over again without even knowing it.

So, let’s take a look at the most dangerous assumptions in the sales world and how to avoid them.

Photo by Juan Rumimpunu on Unsplash

Most Common Assumptions

As always, there are way more examples and context-specific assumptions that people make. This list is just a reminder of the most common assumptions I encountered in my sales career.

1. “I Know What My Client’s Needs”: You know your products and services. You’ve seen them in action at long-term clients. Heck, you yourself use them and you know how amazing they are. I’m not advocating against using this hyped state of mind to sell. It’s very effective. However, don’t forget that your client is not you. and be sure that you’re hyped for the right reasons. They might have different needs or just different needs at the time. You might be missing on a potential to sell them something big just because you’re thinking too narrowly. Whatever it is, without listening to your clients or leads you can’t know what they want. People and companies are all different.
2. “I Know How Our Product/Service Works”: Your product might be changing. You might be selling something that doesn’t exist anymore. Or, you might forget to talk about features that have just been released. Or, your product could be viewed from a different angle. Whatever it is, don’t assume you know your product. Treat your knowledge about it as a continuous learning journey. Otherwise, this can turn into a very dangerous risk to your overall company, especially if you accidentally over-promise. Trust me, I’ve seen this happen. And I’ve seen this ruin the reputation of well-respected startups.
3. “My Client Wants to Pay the Lowest Possible Price”: This is one of my favorites. I’ve seen so many companies, especially younger ones, assume that their clients don’t want to spend money. And this couldn’t be further from the truth. Across all sales disciplines, higher prices signal higher quality. Reversely, lower prices signal lower quality. And, in B2B or B2E, it’s all about the value you create. If you can save your client $ 200,000 in costs, you shouldn’t price yourself at $ 35. And just overall, clients want to pay fair prices. So, negotiate prices. Don’t be afraid to challenge your assumptions and ask for three times what you usually ask for. Let your client give you a proposal first. Test your pricing strategy, don’t assume it. I have a friend who was selling licenses for a software product for $ 300 a year until he had a sales conversation with a large enterprise that didn’t know what they were charging. The large enterprise was stunned by their solution that they asked if they could roll it out for less than $ 50,000 because then they wouldn’t need approval from their procurement department. And they just wanted to use it right away. Ever since he’s been using a business model that charges way higher premiums and is always value-based.
4. “I Know How to Do Sales”: I believe that you do. But, things change over time. Car salespeople were popular in the 80s. Nobody wants to be a cliché car salesperson these days. Don’t get me wrong. There are amazing car salespeople out there but they developed into value-creating professionals. So, my point is: don’t get stuck in your approach to sales. Test new approaches, get feedback, educate yourself. Don’t think you’re way is the only way.
5. Personal Values and Frameworks: We all have our blind spots and biases and make assumptions based on them. Maybe something doesn’t seem mean to you at all but might hurt someone else deeply. Maybe, you think your colleague isn’t working as hard as they should but in all reality they’re swamped with a big project you don’t know about. And, this is dangerous. You might accidentally insult someone without even knowing you did just because of cultural differences. This one is the hardest one to spot and address. I believe that it’s almost impossible to tackle it by yourself. But truly great salespeople find ways to understand their own biases and blind spots. I can only repeat myself and advocate for you to get a mentor and be super open.

And there are way more. But the idea of going through these examples was more to make you aware of your own blind spots.

So, I urge you to actively watch out for other assumptions you make on a daily basis.

And, you’ll never get rid of all of them. It’s just how our brain works. It’s how we get efficient and get things done. But we should still be very aware of assumptions that might be detrimental!

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

Tactics to Counter Assumptions.

So, but how do we change? Well, there are a few tactics that’ll certainly help you address your own assumptions. But, you need to be open to them and allow yourself to admit that you have flaws. Otherwise, i.e. if you're resistant to feedback, none of these will work.

1. Trust Your Gut: Do you know the feeling when you said something that felt slightly off for some reason? Or something you sold as fact which wasn’t a fact after all, and you just hope nobody will notice? There are small tell tails that our gut gives us. If you have the feeling that you might not be 100 % certain about something, you might wanna take a look into it.
2. Ask Questions: This one is so easy but we fail to do it way too often. If you catch yourself making an assumption, ask questions about it. Ask your client how they understand something. You should really do this when you think you know things and you haven’t questioned them in a prolonged period of time. The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll get confirmation that your assumption was right. So, there’s nothing to lose.
3. Rephrase/Summarize: I always do this. When I learn and hear something of importance, especially from new leads that I don’t know that well, I always rephrase what they said to make sure that I’m getting them right. And, I’m good at understanding people but I still get things wrong over 30 % of the time. But, by rephrasing, I’m giving people the chance to correct my wrong understanding of what they said. And, it makes a whole lot of a difference.
4. Do Your Research: Do your research and do it continuously. Don’t think you’re ever done with your research. Don’t just say things. Google is at your hands. You can find out things so quickly. And, if it’s something company-internal, ask your colleagues. They won’t think you’re dumb. They’ll be happy that you double-checked.
5. Get Reality Checks with Colleagues, Friends, and Mentors: Talk to third parties about how you understand things and ask them how they would understand it. Ask them if there might be things you’re missing. This reality check will help you to spot blind spots and biases.
6. Admit Knowledge Gaps: Oftentimes people are afraid to admit that they don’t know things. Well, here’s the thing: most of us don’t know 99.99999… % of things. It’s okay not to know. And you can only learn if you admit that you don’t know something. Next time you’ll know.
7. Be Humble: And most importantly — in my opinion — just try not to assume. Be humble and understand that people are different. Admit to yourself that perfect communication doesn’t exist. You’ll always get something wrong.

So, I hope you’ll now have some fun testing your assumptions!

And, If You Want to Write Fact-Based Messages Rather Than Assumption-Based Messages, Give Resonaid a Try.

Resonaid is a tool that writes personalized messages for your sales outreach. It identifies unique and personal hooks that you can use to send out messages that are customized for every single lead. It literally takes all the work away from doing outreach. So, rather than spending 5 hours reaching out, it’ll only take you some 30 minutes.

Make sure to give it a try, if you haven’t already!

Access Resonaid via the Chrome Web Store.

Resonaid is a tool that helps sales professionals with writing personalized messages for their sales outreach.

We recently released the first version of our product as a Chrome extension in the Chrome Web Store.

As we just went live this summer, you can currently test Resonaid for free and get large discounts by being an early user.

About the Author.

Teddy Lange is a co-founder at Resonaid and is responsible for business development and customer experience. Before joining Resonaid, he’s been a Sales Rep and Junior Sales Manager, and co-founded various companies. He’s currently finishing his graduate degree in Public Policy with a focus on communication at Harvard University. Feel free to reach out to him at teddy@resonaid.co.