Let’s take a look at a long-held sales theory…
I know many of you are not going to like what I’m about to say. That’s okay – all I ask is you consider this with an open mind.
You’ve all heard the axiom that people buy from people they know, like, and trust. It sounds great and it’s a positive theory put forth by sales trainers and motivational speakers. But is it true? Is there data to support this claim? There is some antidotal information, but I’m not sure about pure data. I haven’t found any, so if it’s out there, I’m all ears, or eyes. What I do know is that plenty of people buy from people they don’t like and don’t know very well. They might trust them at some level, I’ll agree to that. Let me give you a couple of examples, one personal and one fairly high profile:
High Profile Example:
Years ago Apple and Microsoft hated each other (maybe they still do, I’m not paying that much attention these days). They were in and out of court so many times it would make your head spin. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates made it pretty clear in their presentations and speeches that there was no love lost between them. Thankfully, that changed over the years. But, back in the day, the dislike was fierce. I know, I attended an event where both were on the dais, one after the other. Their comments were pretty aggressive. Despite this enmity, back in the late 80’s and early 90’s there were always upwards of 50 – 100 engineers from each company on the campus of the other, making sure they were able to allow the other’s product to work on their equipment or with their software. Here were two organizations that clearly didn’t like each other, probably didn’t trust each other, yet they were doing business together because it made good business sense.
Personal Example:
In an early phase in my work career, I worked in retail. I was the GM for a small consumer electronics store – well, two stores. We carried all the leading brands and we constantly were under pressure from bigger, more aggressive, sometimes national chains. So our promotions had to be good ones. There was one rep that made me crazy. He was loud, he was obnoxious, he was (much to my chagrin) smarter than me. Every time he came to visit I was tense until he arrived, we were always arguing, and I needed a drink after he left. But guess what, 80% of the time a promotion he suggested went well, the store and the salespeople made money, the customers got a quality product that met their needs, and we celebrated our success. There was another rep that I really liked, he was a great guy with whom I had worked in a prior job. But, despite my knowing, liking and trusting him, his product (very high quality) didn’t generate much gross margin for our sales team or for the store. Needless to say, we did a lot more promotions with the guy who made my blood boil. Luckily I was early enough in my career that I hadn’t heard the rule that I was to do business with people I knew, liked, and trusted. If I had followed that rule I would have forgone some very successful promotions and had a sales team that wasn’t nearly as successful and happy.
I’m sure if you examine your current position, you’ll come to the conclusion that you do plenty of business with people you don’t particularly like, you trust to only a degree, and you, in fact, have only come to know them over time, but initially, when you started doing business with them that you didn’t know them very well at all. Now, if you have this trifecta and that person, or their company, helps you achieve great outcomes, all the better. But to make a business decision solely based on the “know, like, and trust” rule can be a mistake.
There are a lot of theories out there about sales and marketing – this is just one. But there is very little data. It’s starting to come. There is now great research and science-backed data regarding sales. If you’re in sales, when presented with a theory about what to do to be successful, you need to ask to see the data. If it’s not there, then you need to wonder where the idea came from. Is it a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (if you don’t know what that is, your assignment is to look it up)? Or can you actually find the data? What you find might surprise you.
