Assertiveness and Sales Results
I WAS WITH A group of colleagues and we were sharing stories of our first jobs. One of our successful colleagues had us howling as he told us his adventures in his first job as a paperboy. He grew up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood so let’s just say some of his customers could be a little difficult.
He would wake up at 4:00 a.m., load up his bike with papers, and work like crazy to deliver them before the 7:00 a.m. deadline. Only if the weather was really bad would he wake up his father to help finish the job.
The real fun began after school, when he’d start collecting money from his customers. Many of them had already had a cocktail by 4:00 p.m. so they enjoyed “messing” with a ten-year-old, saying they weren’t going to pay. Many attempted to shortchange him, pretending to give him ten dollars when in reality they’d only given him five dollars. Customers shut doors in his face, telling him to come back later—like in twenty years.
But my colleague, even at the age of ten, was assertive. He possessed the ability to state what he needed, even when doing so was emotionally difficult. He’d continue to knock on closed doors, stand his ground with customers twice his size, and collect his hard-earned money. His assertiveness has served him well in his career as a top sales professional. He’s exceptionally good at asking for what he needs during the sales process.
Assertiveness Is Not a Behavioral Style
Assertive salespeople are able to stand up for what they need and do it in a way that doesn’t offend other people. Sales managers not interviewing for this skill run the chance of hiring a salesperson who is passive-aggressive. These salespeople have a high need for approval and a need to go-along-to-get-along. These go-along-to-get-along salespeople avoid holding the difficult conversations that are inherently part of life, sales, and business. For example, a client requests a scope change in a project, however, doesn’t want to pay additional fees. The passive-aggressive salesperson avoids the assertive conversation that needs to happen, doesn’t charge the client, and the project profitability decreases. Not because of mistakes or missed deadlines. Because the salesperson lacked the assertiveness to state what was needed: payment for a requested scope change.
Interviewing for assertiveness often gets missed in the interview process. The pre-hire assessment shows that your potential candidate is a high driver, dominant, and results-oriented salesperson. We immediately conclude this salesperson is assertive. Be careful. Don’t confuse a behavioral style with an emotional intelligence skill.
Assertiveness Can Be Learned
Jennifer was a classic example of a high driver who needed more development with her assertiveness. She was really good at the discovery step, controlling her impulse to immediately offer advice. Jennifer had great problem-solving skills, which helped potential clients understand the impact of doing nothing. Then, she’d blow it during the budget stage of the sales process. When asking the prospect for the investment they’d set aside to purchase her digital marketing services, the prospect would give the typical answer, “I don’t know . . . we’ve never invested in this before . . . just put something together.”
Jennifer’s assertiveness would go right out the window and she’d go-along-to-get-along. She would write a recommendation without uncovering if the prospect was willing or able to invest in her services. Valuable time was invested in writing more than one proposal for unqualified prospects. “This is more than I wanted to invest. We’ll need to delay this decision.”
Chalk up another practice proposal to lack of assertiveness.
The good news is Jennifer is self-aware and humble and invested in coaching. In fact, I’ll never forget one rather tough-love coaching session. She was giving me several yeah-but-you-don’t-understand excuses. “Yeah, but the prospect really doesn’t have a budget. Yeah, but they’ve never invested in digital marketing before so they don’t know what to invest.”
I shared the same advice I received from an early mentor when I was hearing similar answers from my prospects. He calmly stated, “If your prospect doesn’t have a budget, how can he tell you that your price is too high? Your prospect has a budget. Let’s discuss how your lack of assertiveness is affecting your ability to uncover that budget.”
How and Where Low Assertiveness Affects Sales Results
Hire a salesperson who lacks assertiveness and you will see the impact on sales results in various selling steps and stages. Let’s look at three other areas where lack of assertiveness affects the accuracy of sales forecasts and achievement of sales goals.
Decision Step
Salespeople lacking assertiveness have difficulty gaining access to the right decision maker or all of the buying influences. It’s not because the salesperson lacks knowledge. The sales manager has taught them the Sales IQ skills, the consultative selling skills, needed to gain access to all the buying influences. Tactics such as:
“Mr. Buyer. I think we’ve had a good conversation today and I do believe my company can help with some of your challenges and goals. However, where we’ve had the best success is when we also meet with your chief marketing officer. Can you help me get that meeting set up?”
That’s an easy enough request, right? Not for the nonassertive salesperson. They know they should ask the question but avoid asking the question for fear of not being liked or rocking the sales boat. They go-along-to-get-along and the request is never stated. Your company loses to a more assertive salesperson, one who asked to get a meeting with other decision makers.
Big Sales Pipelines Full of Unqualified Prospects
Meet nonassertive Henry. He is conducting a first meeting with a prospect and it’s one of those nice sales meetings. You know, those meetings where the prospect says all the right things. “We think it’s a good idea to look every few years. We’ve heard good things about your organization.” But with closer analysis, there really is no compelling reason for this prospect to change and invest in your services.
The prospect asks Henry to put together a recommendation. Now, nonassertive Henry recognizes there is no pain to solve or goal to achieve. However, he lacks the assertiveness to state the obvious and goes-along-to-get-along. He invests hours writing a recommendation only to hear, “This looks really great. The timing isn’t quite right . . . can you follow up in ten years?”
Sales managers who hire nonassertive salespeople end up managing sales pipelines that are bursting full—of unqualified prospects. Nonassertive salespeople suffer from carpal tunnel because they write a lot of recommendations for prospects that are never going to buy! They keep prospects in the sales funnel that should have been moved out months ago. It’s as if they adopt these prospects—like a pet—because they lack the assertiveness to nicely disqualify them and find them a new home in some other salesperson’s pipeline.
Lack of assertiveness = practice proposals = missed sales forecasts
Hire an assertive salesperson and the conversation is going to sound a little different. This salesperson is comfortable applying your training and nicely declines to take a next step. “Ms. Prospect, thank you for asking for a recommendation from us. However, based on our conversation today, I don’t know if I’m hearing enough reasons for you to change or invest. What am I missing?”
The assertive salesperson states what she needs nicely and what she needs is a qualified opportunity, one where the prospect has a compelling business reason to change, grow, and invest. She doesn’t need more practice writing proposals!
Clear Next Steps
Here’s another crazy place where low assertiveness shows up during the sales process. Setting clear next steps with a prospect . . . or not. This selling step is so simple. Every good sales trainer, sales manager, and sales coach teaches this concept.
Yet, we’ve all seen salespeople end a sales meeting or send off a proposal with no date on the calendar to connect or review. It’s the sales kiss of death and the beginning of chase mode. Your nonassertive salesperson turns into a sales stalker, one who keeps sending emails and leaving voicemails in hopes of getting a response.
Hire an assertive salesperson and you will find a salesperson who is comfortable stating what she needs. And what she needs is a mutually agreed-upon next step, one that is on both parties’ calendars.
The Aggressive Salesperson
A sales manager not vetting a candidate for assertiveness might end up with the opposite communication style and hire an overly aggressive salesperson. This salesperson has no problem stating what he needs except he doesn’t know how to ask for what he needs in a manner that doesn’t emotionally trigger prospects and customers.
Aggressive selling behaviors result in perfectly qualified prospects choosing to do business with your competitor because aggressive salespeople are often not likeable salespeople. The only way they know how to get results is through pushing or demanding. They might engage in the following nonproductive selling behaviors.
• The aggressive salesperson is too direct, creating a fight-or-flight response in the prospects. The conversation shuts down as does the opportunity.
• The aggressive salesperson asks weird, leading questions, ones that make prospects feel like they are being backed into a corner. “Wouldn’t you agree?” Or, “But I thought you said you wanted to eliminate this challenge . . . so, you are okay with the status quo?” Yeah, this is a fun call for your prospect.
• The aggressive salesperson pushes through objections rather than trying to understand objections. Aggressive salespeople talk too much and listen too little. Enough said.
Hire an aggressive salesperson and you will find yourself losing sales because prospects still like to buy from people they like.
Have I Confused You?
If you’ve been in sales management long enough, you’ve probably managed a salesperson that has demonstrated all three types of behaviors: assertive, passive-aggressive, and aggressive. It’s because the demonstration of emotional intelligence skills is situational. In certain situations, and with certain buyers, a salesperson demonstrates the right amount of assertiveness during the sales conversation. And yet, in other selling scenarios, one of their evil twins takes over the sales call.
A salesperson might default to passive-aggressive behaviors based on their comfort level with the size of the opportunity. When the deal size gets bigger, the salesperson goes along to get along and doesn’t ask for what she needs to create a successful partnership.
I’ve worked with salespeople who are really likeable. And yet, when meeting with certain personality styles, they get emotionally triggered. Out of the blue, their aggressive Attila the Hun personality takes over the sales call. No likeability or sale.
Do you hire or not hire a salesperson who does not have the skill of assertiveness fully developed? The answer is yes and no. Evaluate other soft skills in the interview process such as the salesperson’s self-awareness and willingness to be coached. Emotional intelligence skills can be improved and the coachable salesperson is happy to hear and apply feedback.
Analyze how much time it will take for you to help your potential new hire to develop this skill. Do you have the time to invest? Is this “something” you are willing to live with or is this pebble going to become a rock?
Sales managers, take a look at your assertiveness during the interviewing process. Observe your own style and determine if you are going-along-to-get-along when interviewing candidates. Maybe you avoid asking the tougher questions, deeper questions, or simply more questions.
Be assertive in your interview process and ask the assertive questions to determine if this candidate should be on your sales bus.
Sales EQ Interview Questions
1. Tell me about a sales call where the prospect was hesitant to share their budget or didn’t have a budget. What did you do? What was the outcome?
2. Give me an example of a time when a prospect didn’t want to introduce you to other decision makers in the organization. What did you say and do?
3. Share a time where you disqualified an opportunity because the prospect wasn’t a good fit for your company. What did you say and do when the prospect asked you for a proposal after you decided to disqualify them?
4. Give me an example of a sales call where the prospect wasn’t willing to set up clear next steps after a meeting. What did you say and do?
5. Tell me about a time when you had to challenge a prospect on their current approach, product, or solution. What questions did you ask? What was the outcome of the conversation?
Assertive salespeople are comfortable stating what they need to create true win-win partnerships. And they state what they need in a way that doesn’t emotionally trigger prospects or customers. Avoid hiring passive-aggressive or aggressive salespeople to avoid missed sales forecasts.