STUMP THE EXPERTS

In your sales circles, who do you trust to give you information?

This was a question that was asked of a group of us at a sales conference I attended a few weeks ago. The group consisted of 20 people, 10 sales reps, 5 sales managers, 4 VP’s of sales, and 1 sales trainer (I wonder who that was). The conference was conducted by a national sales magazine and the results of the discussion will be published sometime this year. I would like to tell you the name of the magazine but was told not to. (Sorry, they would revoke my membership badge and make me forget the secrete handshake)

It was rather funny to see how the answers broke along the same lines as the positions, it reminded me a lot of our congress...LOL... the sales people said trust experienced sales people, the managers said trust your sales manager, the VP’s said trust the company, and I said.. I will tell you what I said later.

To me this was very amusing, especially when you saw the looks on the moderator’s faces. I am not sure what they expected but I can tell you for sure it wasn’t this. It was easy for me to see the experts were stumped.

As the room got louder and louder with each person in each group trying to exert their own rationale onto the other groups I watched as one moderator after another left the room and came back into the room. They were obviously going to talk to “the people behind the glass” that were watching and listening.

Then one of the discussion leaders pounded on the table and restored order and silence to the room. The discussion leader then asked each of us to think of one reason we said what we did and one reason we think each of the other groups said what they did. I knew this could get ugly...LOL... But I was proud of myself and everyone else, it didn’t get ugly, as a matter of fact for the first time in the day we were all having a single discussion and seemed to be very open to one another’s thoughts.

It took about an hour for us to finish this exercise. When we were done the leader of the conference came into the room, looked at us, and said, “WOW”.

That one word said it all. He went on to tell us that what he and the other people conducting the conference just saw was absolutely unexpected. He was very candid and said they all thought that the sales managers would be the group that everyone thought they could trust for information. They said that in the observation room were what he called SALES EXPERTS and they were all stumped at the responses of our group. He then continued to tell us that one reason they were all so stumped is not only because it went against what they thought, but it was the exact same answer they got from the group before us!

He then looked at me and asked why I hadn’t expressed my opinion (remember I told you I would let you know what I said, I said NOTHING) I told them that it would depend on the person asking, the person being asked and the advice being sought. He asked me to explain my statement. I told him that each group had their own skill set and knowledge. If the information wasn’t in the area the person knew then how could they be expected to give information that was reliable?

The leader kept trying to pin me down on the “what and when” of each group and their knowledge. I just said that we all can’t be everything to everyone. I am not sure if this was what they wanted to hear but it is what they got from me.

The bottom line on the whole day, even the experts don’t always agree. One person’s opinion is just that, ONE person’s opinion. Don’t try and make one size fit all.

Seek who you feel is qualified to give you information. Don’t settle for just any answer that comes your way. You don’t ask a doctor to fix your car do you? Allow people to use their expertise to help you in their own areas of knowledge. You need to trust someone, make it an expert!

Lorin