Are You a Gambler in Your Sales Approach? Six Steps to Changing the Pattern to Solve the Problem

When I trained on this topic a few years ago I told my team that I was looking for their vulnerability to be mindfully present. If we recognize and own up to how we might be gamblers with our customer engagement it is a game changer. 

Are you a gambler? Do you...

• stake something of value on the outcome of something you think involves chance?
• believe there are only lucky breaks?
• play a game in which you win or lose money?
• throw the dice and hope for the best?
• believe heads or tails are a best practice for making decisions and getting results?

You are not alone if you read those gambling characteristics and say "no way"! Let's lean into this question a little deeper by naming gambler types and their identifiers.


The "Dance Gambler"

“The Circular Dance”

You: I “know-what’s-best-for-you” attitude.™*

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This intensifies the customer’s willful assertion of his own independence.

*I put the trademark symbol next to this identifier because some have this one down pat as their trademark approach. I call this the Dance Gambler because this gambler's engagement with the customer is a circular dance. It becomes a battle of wills between the sales consultant and the customer.  Whose leading who?

The "Generic Gambler"

(Ouch! Is the word “generic” on that list of vocabulary words NOT allowed in your book? I hope so.)

When you target customers on generic qualifications you are gambling by treating them like commodities.

If you make your customer a commodity, they will view you as a commodity.

(Whoa! Read that one again!)

FACT: Customers actively resist generic approaches.

The "Wing & Prayer Gambler"

If you are spending time with customers you are not prepared to engage (this means prepared strategically) you are a Wing & Pray Gambler.

If you view being strategically-prepared as just showing up, you end up gambling your time and resources on vagueness. Subsequently, your sales results will be less robust, random and unpredictable.

The "Friendly & Helpful Gambler"

If your customer may be left wondering, “Does this salesperson really think I have nothing better to do with my time than hearing about this product?” Or "hearing about them personally?" This means the sales consultant is dwelling on anything that has you avoiding steps in the selling process. That one thing in the process you are not comfortable with like, for example, a Needs Analysis to determine if you are on the right track. We stay where we are comfortable and confident and believe we are being friendly and helpful. Friendly ad helpful is your worst compliment. Cringe when you hear it! 

You may be a Friendly & Helpful Gambler. 

"The reason it seems that price is all your customers care about is that you haven’t given them anything else to care about."  -Seth Godin

The "Trust Me Gambler"    

     You have the uncommon ability to build trust and rapport with your customers but feel you could take advantage of this trust & rapport. You think your customer would feel selling pressure from you if you moved to the next step with them.

(Whether it be getting their information and their preferred way to receive communication from you, asking for an appointment, asking why they’re not ready to move forward, etc.)                                      

So which type of gambler are you?

“Dance Gambler”

“Generic Gambler”

“Wings & Prayer Gambler”

“Friendly & Helpful Gambler”

“Trust Me Gambler”

(Remember that open-mindedness and vulnerability I ask you to have today? First step to fixing a problem is being humble enough to admit we have one and then learning to love being uncomfortable. Yup, “Uncomfortable” is your new BFF!)

Six Steps to Changing the Pattern to Solve the Problem

1. Create an engagement strategy that customers believe could not have been crafted for any other person but themselves. This doesn't just apply to your face-to-face encounter. It is every time you engage the customer. Via phone, email, at presentation, in-home, in-store, on delivery, via text. Every time.
2. Create compelling engagement. Seriously. Compelling. Not "you get my canned engagement until you give me a reason to give you something more" engagement. Not "I'm tired and you don't look like you are going to be my next big one" engagement. Not "oh your budget is only that" engagement. Not "I've been doing this a long time and am stuck in a rut" engagement. Compelling engagement. Every darn time!
3. Understand your distinctive value. If you have trouble identifying what your distinctive value is ask your coach. Even better, ask those around you who know you well, who are honest and have seen you on your game or have seen glimpses of you being on your game.
4. Create strategies to win when the stakes are high. This means being strategically prepared for every engagement and not gambling on your past success, your generic approach, your knowledge, your uncanny abilities, etc. This mean forecasting what comes at this next engagement and delivering it.
5. Realize that fear is always present and available to inform us of all our perceived limitations. And to recognize them as only perceived limitations that cause us to be a gambler.
6. Recognize that the level of trust and rapport you have with your customers will influence their perception of selling pressure. If you have a high trust and rapport, selling pressure will be perceived as low. But, if trust and rapport are weak, any selling pressure will be perceived as high.

I am as much interested in the smallest detail as I am in the whole structure. 

-Marcel Breuer

In the context of engaging your customer, how does this quote apply? What is the big picture you are leaning into?

Sources: “Integrity Selling” Ron Willingham, “Mastering the Complex Sale: How to Compete and Win When the Stakes are High!” Jeff Thull, “Dance of Anger” Harriet Lerner , Wikipedia