What makes you different?

"What makes you different? "We get asked that sometimes, just like any other business. I suspect we at Sandler don’t make enough of what makes us different. I don’t mean the completely counter-intuitive sales methodology, although that really is different. Just the idea that we refuse to sell on features and benefits and only use our stuff as “proof of concept” once the prospect has pretty much decided to buy, is a real game-changer. The idea that we will agree with the other party in the meeting exactly what’s going to happen in the meeting, beginning, middle and end, is indeed potentially career-changing.

No, what I’m referring to is that we are a franchise of individual companies. So we trainers are out there selling. We are suffering the ups and downs, the glories and the mistakes just as much as our clients. We don’t ask our clients to do anything we don’t or haven’t done ourselves. That’s why we can get a bit harsh sometimes. When someone tells me “that won’t work”, or words to that effect, I get just a bit cross.

Yes, I can understand it might not work in its purest form in your specific circumstance, but we trainers are there on hand giving examples of how indeed it does work, from our very own experience. Yes, a lot of what we ask is initially uncomfortable (asking “how does that make you feel?” is one of the most uncomfortable things I can imagine), but we do it, and we do so regularly. In fact, we will have said it them, our clients, when we were doing the discovery phase.

So what’s our real difference? We’re not just trainers. We are business owners, salespeople, fulltime students of Sandler. Now there’s a BIG difference!