Many years ago, a co-worker named Austin Crawford taught me a valuable lesson about selling. It took place at a shop in rural North Carolina that was buying from Crawford pallets of Fypon PVC in 4x8-foot sheets. This business was building wooden columns and covering them in PVC to create virtually maintenance-free columns for area builders.
After our call, I asked Crawford, “Why would this guy buy Fypon from us? He certainly has better, cheaper options.” Crawford agreed that his product cost $1 to $2 a sheet more than another supplier, so if that had been his value proposition he would have had no chance.
But Crawford won the sale because he had made a different proposal: “Buy a pallet of the sheets from me at this higher price,” he had said, “and one day a week I will come to your market and call on builders selling your columns. If after working through the pallet, I have not proven to you the value of this service, then don’t buy any more from me.”
When it came time to order another pallet, the column builder realized he sold more columns, and worked through that pallet faster than he ever had before, and this relationship continued for a few years. Crawford also picked up several builder customers in the area, selling products they needed other than columns, so this was a lucrative arrangement for both parties. He effectively turned a commodity item into something he could differentiate and leverage.
I began calling this the “Why Me” principle, and it demonstrates the importance of thinking strategically. Too many times, salespeople fly from sales call to sales call without giving much thought how they’d approach a prospect. They ask the same old questions: What products are you using? Where are you buying them at? How much are you paying?
Many years after my experience with Crawford, I worked with sales trainer Jim Pancero. He suggested that each prospective customer you meet is asking themselves, “Why, based on the alternatives available to me, should I buy from you?” I realized this was the same as asking “Why me?”
If you can’t answer the “Why Me?” question in a meaningful and impactful way, what is the one basis that person will make their decision on? PRICE! And you will have driven them to a price decision by the way you conducted yourself. I’d advise you to have an answer to that question before you make another sales call. It’s that important.
Being a successful salesperson requires many capabilities–product knowledge, organizational skills, knowledge of the competition, how you’re different, stellar questioning skills, and of course confidence. Confidence comes from experience, preparation, planning and success.
Grow your confidence by exploring the Why Me principle. Pretty soon, it will turn into “Why not me?”
