The High Cost Of Responsiveness: Over-Committing Resources

By Jerry Stapleton, Stapleton Resources

There's a mantra in most of the sales articles we read these days: how to sell in a down economy! Call me out of touch, but I don't get it.

Bull or bear, good selling is good selling and bad is bad. A down economy is just less forgiving of the bad.

Here's just one dimension of selling that should come under intense scrutiny—especially now—because it falls squarely in that bucket called "bad selling": salespeople over-committing time and resources chasing opportunities they have no business chasing.

This is actually a subset of the broader malady of salespeople spending too much time (and other resources) on sure winners and sure losers. Remember, if you're spending too much time there, you're not spending it where you can make a difference.

Anyone who follows these columns knows that the notion of, "the customer is always right" is a dogmatic belief that is part of the creed of most salespeople. And therein, I believe, lies the problem. Do you agree? Before you answer, take a look at the question in Exhibit 1.

Are salespeople wired to be a bit too responsive?

The question in Exhibit 1 comes from a diagnostic Stapleton Resources has been administering to salespeople for several years, so our statistics are quite valid. About eighty percent choose "a," fifteen percent "c," leaving a mere five percent choosing what I believe is the right answer: "b"!

Why so many choose "a" is fairly obvious: it's just how salespeople are wired.

Ninety-five percent of salespeople are not comfortable letting customers know that they (the salespeople) need to protect their own company's resources.

The other two responses are the interesting ones. When we ask some of the fifteen percent who chose "c" to explain their selection the answer is consistently along the lines of, "I wanted to choose 'b,' because I do try to protect my company's resources, but I'm not really comfortable having customers actually know this." Oh? Why not?

Spin this any way we like, but the bottom line is that ninety-five percent of salespeople are not comfortable letting customers know that they (the salespeople) need to protect their own company's resources. The implications of this thinking are profound—and costly!

Take the RFP (one is inclined to add...please!)

Let's say an RFP comes across the fax machine or email. We take a look at it and determine that it looks real, it might be winnable, and (if we win) it might be good business.

However, before we spend too much time and resources developing a response to the RFP we need to know more about the "big picture" (note this is not referring to getting more technical details) so we can better size up our chances of winning and making money on this thing. So, we're going to call the prospect that sent it to us.

Putting our newfound mindset into words

If we're like the ninety-five percent of salespeople described above, the call might sound something like this:

Hi, this is so-and-so from XYZ Company. Thanks for sending the recent RFP in our direction. I have a few questions I'd like to ask about the RFP, do you have a couple minutes?"

The "problem" with this language is that the prospect thinks you are calling to clarify some details before you bid (i.e. that you are going to bid!), and that's pretty much all you can expect the dialog to yield.

If you have a mindset like the five percent above (we call this a 'Business Resource Mindset') the call might sound more like this:

This is so-and-so from XYZ Company. Thanks for sending the recent RFP in our direction. We've taken a preliminary look at it and, on first blush at least, it sure appears to fit nicely with our expertise and our business in general. However, it's also a pretty substantial RFP that will require considerable time and resources to respond. So, before we roll up our sleeves and commit those resources—and I'm sure you can appreciate this—I'd like to get a better sense of the big picture of the project just to make sure it fits with our own business model, expertise and the like. If that make sense, would you happen to have 20 minutes or so right now?" 

What does the prospect think in this case? What do you think this dialog will yield?

The cost of responsiveness—in the name of "The customer is always right" dogma—can be very high. Just repeat after me—several times a day—"I'm basically pretty protective of my time and my company's resources and I want prospects and customers to understand this!"

Would you like to know more? To hear Jerry Stapleton’s commentary on this column, click here. Jerry's audio appears at the top of the linked page and can be downloaded as an MP3 file.

Jerry Stapleton of Stapleton Resources is author of "From Vendor to Business Resource", a ground-breaking book that encourages salespeople to move away from traditional selling based on product, price and personality. He can be reached at jstapleton@stapletonresources.com, or go to his website, www.stapletonresources.com.

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