Tobias Binau

To me, this is insane.
 
 These are 3 screenshots of material from some of the biggest and most respected providers of sales tech (and for good reason).
 
 All 3 COMPLETELY drop the ball when outlining and visualizing a sales process.
 
 While it’s a simplistic way of showing this, something burns my eyes when looking at it.
 
 In the pictures below their process looks like this:
 
 Pitch solution → Overcome objections
 Demonstration → Objection handling
 Pitch → Handle objections
 
 If that's how sellers are taught to sell,
 If that’s the sales process they follow,
 
 No wonder businesses find it difficult to sell.
 
 Sales aren't about “pitching” a product/service and then getting under rapid “objection handling” fire.
 
 Sales isn’t a matter of attack and defense.
 
 Sales is collaborative.
 
 We don’t pitch; we propose solutions to very well-defined issues with hurtful consequences.
 
 We don’t handle objections; we discuss the pros and cons of various solutions.
 
 An objection is not to be handled - it’s a sign that we need to take a step back, as there is something we don’t fully understand that is yet to be discussed.
 
 SPIN Selling - A book written in 1988, concludes that objection prevention is more successful than objection handling.
 
 35 years later, we are still focussing on objection handling rather than prevention.
 
 If you still wonder whether these 3 examples are a good framework for developing a sales process - I can only say:
 
 No, not if you want to win.
 
 P.S. I intentionally left out the logos of the tech providers, but you might recognize their visual identities.