Karl Becker Of Improving Sales Performance On How To Be Great At Sales Without Seeming Salesy

Set Yourself Up for Success. I was able to design an agenda for our meeting that was informed by all that I’d learned about the brand. It helped me decide what outcome we would be playing for and create an experience that would achieve that goal. The customer was made well aware of the course the meeting would take and that I’d be fully engaged with him for the duration of it.

As a part of my series about how to be great at closing sales without seeming pushy, obnoxious, or salesy, I had the pleasure of interviewing Karl Becker.

Karl Becker has founded and run numerous companies over the last thirty years and now runs Improving Sales Performance, a consultancy that supports sales organizations to build high-performing teams and achieve their revenue goals. He is the author of Set up to Win: Three Frameworks to a High-Performing Sales Organization and Sales & Marketing Alignment. He has a BA in economics from Colorado College and an MBA from the University of Colorado, Boulder. You can learn more about him and his work at improvingsalesperformance.com.

Thank you for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to this career path?

I’ve never been an “there’s only one way to get to the top of the mountain” type of guy.

Very early in my career, I had a sales job where they would tell us, “Call this list of people and follow this script.” As early as when I was in school, I knew that doing things according to a strict set of rules was highly ineffective for me. So, instead of just following the script they gave me, I got creative and did what worked for me. By doing so, I was able to achieve the company’s sales goals and actually exceed them. That became a clue to how I could succeed as an entrepreneur, make my own destiny, and chart my own path. Over time, I brought this realization to the way I encourage and support salespeople to be the best they can be using their individual skills and creativity.

Can you share with our readers the most interesting or amusing story that occurred to you in your career so far? Can you share the lesson or takeaway you took out of that story?

One story that meant a lot to me, and has resonated with many of my clients, is one that I tell in a lot of my talks and workshops, as well as in my book, Iceberg Selling. It’s about a guy I met at a workshop named Tim.

Tim was an entrepreneur who founded a tech startup, and as we were wrapping up the workshop and I was getting ready to go home, he came up to me and asked if I did sales coaching. I had a good amount of time before my flight home, so we decided to talk then and there.

Tim had raised funding and had introductions to some really great customers. He’d met with many of these customers, and in his meetings, had done well creating dialogue and showcasing his solution. But he had a closing problem. It seemed like everything went well right up to the close; then things would fall apart. He’d meet his ideal customer, have a great initial conversation, come in for a presentation, meet an engaged audience, and then nothing would come of it.

He and I started to go deep. I asked him for examples and to share the core steps of his sales process. In the early steps, he would share his solution, and demonstrate how they solved problems and enabled tech teams to be more efficient. All his initial steps seemed great to me, and I could see he was a domain expert who was clearly passionate about his solution.

Then we started to explore what would happen after the presentation, after he would get into conversations with his potential customers about features, functionalities, and use cases. As he told it, these potential customers would be right there with him, in agreement over how his solutions could support their teams. That was when things would go sideways — right there during that step from people agreeing with the value of his solution to them implementing his solution.

“Do you like sales?” I asked Tim.

Tim paused and then awkwardly said, “No, I hate it.”

Next, I asked him what he thought sales was. “It’s convincing someone to do something,” he said. “It makes me feel uncomfortable. I don’t like doing it.”

“Tim,” I said, “I have good news for you. That’s not sales.”

There was a physical show of relief on his face, but he still seemed nervous.

“I know we just met today, but in the workshop, I observed a few things about you based on the questions you asked me in front of the group and the stories you told,” I said. “I want to go out on a limb here, take a chance, but I might be about to open up something deep for you. Are you okay with that?”

Tim cautiously agreed.

“Okay…good. So, you told a few stories in the session today about getting in front of companies that could be really good fits for your solution. In all of those stories, you left the meeting thinking it went well, and then nothing ever happened. But throughout the workshop today, you also told a couple stories about your father — how you grew up in his business, how he was a tough business owner, and how much you admired what he built and how he did it. Does that sound right?”

Tim agreed.

“Now, I want to ask you a heavy question. What I also observed when you told stories about your dad is it felt like stories about the past, like maybe you had lost your father. Did your father pass away recently?”

Tim froze. His eyes got watery. That answered the question for me even before he nodded.

“We all have triggers from past experiences,” I affirmed. “So, I want to ask you another question. It’s going to be about your dad, and it might be a little hard for you. Are you still good if we keep talking about all of this?”

Another nod.

“What did your father think of people in sales?”

Tim took a moment to answer.

“He didn’t like them. He didn’t like people telling him what he should or shouldn’t do or what he should or shouldn’t think. He didn’t like feeling sold to.”

I gave Tim a slight smile and thanked him. Then I asked, “When you sell, do you feel you are letting your dad down? Or being someone he wouldn’t want you to be?”

Tim’s eyes welled up again, and we sat there for a moment.

Finally, I said, “It’s okay, Tim. You don’t need to sell the way you think you ‘should’ or in a way you think would make your dad judge you. You can sell in a way that is right for you. From what I’ve learned about you, I think it’s as simple as asking the tech customers you meet with if they’d be open to trying your solution out with their team. All you probably need to do is invite them into your solution and ask them to try it out and give feedback.”

I told him that from there, one of two things would happen. He would either learn that he needed to keep modifying his product until it was right based on what they said, or the companies would see the value and want to move forward with him and invest in his solution.

That day, Tim changed his life. He realized that sales isn’t a bunch of words you say to magically convince someone to do something. He realized sales is about learning and understanding people. And once you understand someone’s problems and can show them a path to what they need, it’s up to them to choose whether they want to take that journey with you.

After our conversation, Tim looked like a tremendous weight had been taken off his shoulders. Even better, in my follow-up calls and in his social media feeds, I heard about and saw his success.

Many sales people have the same kind of head trash that blocks them from selling effectively. To overcome that feeling, I invite salespeople to realize that sales is a profession with a ton of value. We create visions and make them accessible, then meet people on their level to guide them to that reality.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Currently, I’m working on launching my book Iceberg Selling and preparing for a speaking tour. Iceberg Selling is an approach to sales based on the understanding that, for every person, company, and situation, you can only see 10% of what’s really going on. The book is full of single-serving lessons and real-life anecdotes, like the one I told about Tim in the last question. It teaches a series of mindsets and five best practices that show salespeople how to explore the 90% of the iceberg that is underwater.

As for why Iceberg Selling is helpful, let me give you a real-life example. The first book I wrote is called Set Up to Win, and it provides three frameworks that help sales organizations perform at a higher level. A leader from the Semester at Sea program had read this book, and invited me to support the sales and marketing team with a workshop.

I became friends with this leader and shared an early draft of Iceberg Selling with him. We decided to apply the fundamentals of this system to educate and onboard his new sales team, so that they could more effectively relate to people. The goal for these salespeople would be to build better relationships with student and administrator customers at the universities where they sold, and bring forward solutions that aligned with their priorities.

The techniques of Iceberg Selling will give these salespeople the tools to provide more opportunities for students to explore the world and become better global citizens. The goal is to spread this message to as many salespeople as possible so they can more effectively connect with their customers too.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Finding my own way to be effective in sales has made finding a mentor difficult, so in many ways I’ve been on my own. However, I find inspiration in the people around me who are getting their hands dirty and giving their best effort day after day. Participating in peer groups has been one of the most educational and fulfilling experiences in my growth as an entrepreneur and coach.

For instance, I’m part of an organization called Vistage, and my Vistage chair is Don Myers. They provide a peer group I share with people who work in different types of businesses, but in many ways we’re all in similar roles. When we get together to share our struggles and progress, we have the opportunity to see how others do things and recognize common themes in all our experiences. The group is an environment that provides logical solutions, emotional support, and the kind of questioning of your own techniques that helps you become a better business owner.

Don, our chair, has created a great space for people to safely explore what’s going on in their lives and process their next steps. I try to do the same thing for the people in the peer groups that I run as well.

For the benefit of our readers, can you tell us a bit why you are an authority on the topic of sales?

Ever since I started mowing lawns as a kid, any business idea I had was up to me to turn into reality. And so I’ve spent my entire life starting companies, building companies, building teams, and generating the sales required to make those companies successful and enable me to continue to evolve and grow in my career. By betting on myself, taking risks, and learning from books and the firsthand experiences of clients and colleagues, I’ve been able to build my career and the companies that I run by turning real-life experiences into best practices for sales. When I teach salespeople to focus on what they’re playing for, this helps them find or remember their personal “why.” Once they reconnect with this, they are reinvigorated, refocused, and much clearer and why they do what they do. This is powerful and a great north star.

Ok. Thanks for all that. Let’s now jump to the main core of our interview. As you know, nearly any business a person will enter, will involve some form of sales. At the same time, most people have never received any formal education about how to be effective at selling. Why do you think our education system teaches nearly every other arcane subject, but sales, one of the most useful and versatile topics, is totally ignored?

I think it’s up to humans to learn how to cooperate and co-create solutions. It’s up to us to solve the big problems that the world has. For me, those big problems are solved through communication that generates understanding and the ability to work together to create solutions. If we’re going to continue to evolve and solve many of the world’s biggest problems, I think it’s essential to learn how to do just that.

I absolutely think what’s lacking in the educational space is a commitment to learning how to understand and support others and deal with differences of opinions to create common roads forward.

That type of understanding and cooperation are the core components of the type of selling I teach in person and in my book, Iceberg Selling. In my opinion, being a guide and facilitator that moves things forward makes exceptional, high impact salespeople. Great salespeople are not tricksters or people that manipulate others into doing things they don’t want to do.

Teaching people to learn to work together, and teaching more effective communication and rapport-building, is the same as teaching someone how to be an excellent salesperson. It isn’t about persuading, manipulating, or forcing sales. It’s about understanding the 90% of a customer’s situation that is hidden beneath the surface. It’s about helping people overcome their challenges or solve their problems to the best of your ability.

If we could teach more of those skills in schools, they could be applied to creating a population that knows how to communicate and therefore guide or sell to others. Do I think we should be doing it? Yeah, absolutely. It’s one of the reasons I write books and speak, and why I’m so passionate about Iceberg Selling.

This discussion, entitled, “How To Be Great At Sales Without Seeming Salesy”, is making an assumption that seeming salesy or pushy is something to be avoided. Do you agree with this assumption? Whether yes, or no, can you articulate why you feel the way you do?

I’m defining “salesy” here as the equivalent to manipulative, or trying to get somebody to do something they don’t want to do. I think “pushy” is similar, in that you’re rushing someone who is still trying to process what decision they want to make. Most human beings don’t want to make others do things they don’t want to do. I’m firmly in the camp that there’s no value in manipulating someone that way.

Instead, I think a successful salesperson is more like a guide, mentor, or advisor. In Iceberg Selling, I talk about mindset shifts that balance moving sales forward and supporting people in their decision making: a drivership mindset and a being-of-service mindset. By looking at sales from a perspective of being of service, you’re taking the time to figure out what problem the customer is actually dealing with and offering solutions that actually help them, rather than trying to stick to your own agenda. By using a drivership mindset to move a deal forward, you aren’t just demanding somebody make a decision. You are showing people the next steps that need to be taken in order to get their problem solved. It’s your responsibility as a salesperson to lead a customer toward a sale, but when the person is about to take the plunge, you need to be there holding their hand, ready to jump along with them.

Being in the driver’s seat means having the confidence that you understand someone’s challenge, then charting the path forward to making the most valuable solution their reality. You are the one encouraging them to get into action, you are keeping the car from getting stalled, and you’re helping them move to where they want to be.

The seven stages of a sales cycle are usually broken down to versions of Prospecting, Preparation, Approach, Presentation, Handling objections, Closing, and Follow-up. Which stage do you feel that you are best at? What is your unique approach, your “secret sauce”, to that particular skill? Can you explain or give a story?

The Iceberg Selling approach to sales takes care of each of these steps aside from prospecting, and generally that’s what I use as my sales framework. The five best practices of Iceberg Selling are: do the research, set yourself up for success, build rapport, test for success, and set next steps.

The part where the most magic happens for me is around the stage that most people would look at as a combination of the Presentation and Handling Objections phases. In Iceberg Selling, that’s Best Practice #4: Test for Success.

I approach sales from a collaborative point of view, meaning that I want the customer to play a big part in creating the solution they end up buying. That gives them the kind of personal investment and ownership of the solution that makes them want to get started working together right away.

I start by getting on the same side of the table as the customer, making it known that we’re both here to brainstorm together, and there’s no “winning” or “losing.” Then, I’ll float different ideas to help ensure I’ve got a complete picture of what they need. After we have all the potential solutions out on the table, the customer and I will work on co-creating a solution that works for everyone, based on the period of time. By collaborating and co-creating, I close far more deals than I would if I simply tried to dictate a solution to the client without getting their buy-in and feedback in the process.

Lead generation, or prospecting, is one of the basic steps of the sales cycle. Obviously, every industry will be different, but can you share some of the fundamental strategies you use to generate good, qualified leads?

Before you can think about getting customers, you need to know who you are, who they are, and what you’re really offering them. When I work with companies to strengthen their sales organizations, I go through a process with them of determining their sales foundations — what problems they solve and how they deliver value. Then, I have them create an ideal customer profile, then take them a step further by charting out what that ideal customer’s buyer’s journey would look like. They need to know exactly how to identify who their next best customer is, and know what they would say if they found themselves sitting next to them on an airplane.

Once you know who that ideal customer is, go where they are. Don’t just show up on LinkedIn and start trying to sell to them right away. Share resources without expecting anything in return. Apply a being-of-service mindset to explore their iceberg, what’s really going on below the surface at their company and in their position there. Determine their actual problems, then how your company might solve them. Reaching out with a spirit of service will help you create deeper connections faster. Once you know there is a connection, create a bridge to a simple next step. Maybe this is communicating via email or through LinkedIn Messenger. Or maybe there is enough rapport and interest to suggest a simple “get to know me” meeting. The main goal is to find common ground and approach your interaction as a way to learn about each other and to really get their world. This is a much more slow roll approach than going right for the sales, and it’s one that builds long term value and strong foundations between you and your customer. It’s also one that most likely will feel more natural and authentic to you and them. However, I would recommend trying to meet in person whenever you can, as I have often found this to be the best way to compress time and move the sales cycle forward naturally. From there, I find that the rest takes care of itself.

In my experience, I think the final stages of Handling Objections, Closing, and Follow-up, are the most difficult parts for many people. Why do you think ‘Handling Objections’ is so hard for people? What would you recommend for one to do, to be better at ‘Handling Objections’?

One thing I like to do is reframe the idea of “Handling Objections” as building a clear understanding of the customer’s concerns and reacting to them in a more natural way. Remember, we are looking to really understand your customer’s world. When we understand their world, we can get into authentic conversations about what is going on for them and what they might need to process to move the solution forward.

I once worked with a company with a software platform that was sold to universities. There were several common questions that customers raised, especially whether the platform complied with the Americans with Disabilities Act and how the technology would meet the university’s cybersecurity requirements.

In the old model, a salesperson would have a whole script for “Handling Objections” that came up multiple times, but this software company came at it from a different perspective. When their specifications and the school’s requirements weren’t 100 percent aligned, instead of getting sucked into a debate and trying to overcome the school’s objections, they would suggest a working session that would bring in all the stakeholders. They would welcome questions so everything could be addressed all at once, and everyone who was involved would be educated and feel far more secure with the choices they were making. Salespeople at the software company built this Q&A session into their sales process and brought it up as an option even before the customers did. Schools loved it as there was a step in the evaluation cycle that enabled them to bring their concerns to a working session where their voices were heard and respected. The tech company could use the session to share their best practices and ways other schools had dealt with similar issues.

I find taking this sort of approach is way more collaborative and a positive experience for everybody involved.

‘Closing’ is of course the proverbial Holy Grail. Can you suggest 5 things one can do to successfully close a sale without being perceived as pushy?

In Iceberg Selling, I apply five best practices that help salespeople out of what I call the “check-in zone,” that place all salespeople dread where they start reaching out to try to close the sale. To revisit, those best practices are: do the research, set yourself up for success, build rapport, test for success, and set next steps. I find that these best practices help eliminate that hurdle a large percentage of the time.

Let me tell you the way I close successfully using the example of one of my clients who owned a boutique coffee company and was looking to build a more comprehensive growth strategy and build out his sales organization.

The work began when I first received the referral, at which point I used Best Practice #1: Do the Research. I started my research by asking the person who referred me what it was the company might need from me. Once I had as clear a picture as possible of their needs, I continued my research by identifying what was on the surface — reading about their company values, origin story, vision, and product lines that were available online. I actually lived near one of their coffee shops and paid them a visit, ordering a very good cappuccino, talking to the baristas, and checking out their merchandise.

Doing that research helped me with Best Practice #2: Set Yourself Up for Success. I was able to design an agenda for our meeting that was informed by all that I’d learned about the brand. It helped me decide what outcome we would be playing for and create an experience that would achieve that goal. The customer was made well aware of the course the meeting would take and that I’d be fully engaged with him for the duration of it.

When I actually did meet with the customer, I was all set up to follow Best Practice #3: Build Rapport. “Building rapport” is a term that a lot of people throw around, but fewer people really understand the meaning of. To me, it all centers on being authentic and invested in learning about who the person is and what matters most to them.

In the case of the boutique coffee company, I started our discovery call by asking the owner what his current state was, and what he wanted his future state to look like. It was a great exercise for him to get clear on what he wanted and for me to explore the part of his iceberg that was below the surface. He wanted to increase his sales by finding more wholesale opportunities and building a two-part sales organization: one for business development and account acquisition and the other for account management, growth, and retention.

As I mentioned in a previous question, Best Practice #4: Test for Success, is my favorite. It requires you to get on the same side of the table as your customer and invite them to start brainstorming with you. You’re looking for a solution that is a good fit for them, rather than dictating what they should do. Offer them solutions and make adjustments until you find something that is going to help your client achieve their goal. With the coffee company, I shared examples of ways I’d helped my past clients to achieve the type of goals he had suggested. We went back and forth for about twenty minutes, and by the end of the call, we had a variety of possible solutions. He became very curious about executing these solutions, and by the end of the call he was eager to move forward.

By the time you reach this phase, if you’ve found the right fit, if you’ve really invested time into building rapport and exploring the customer’s iceberg, you won’t have to force anything. The customer will be asking to buy from you instead of you having to ask them to buy. That leads us to Best Practice #5: Set Next Steps. Right then and there, at the end of the call, make an appointment to speak again and finalize the deal you are working on. You’re the person who has helped your customer find a solution that will work for them, so it’s your job to guide them through the final steps of the process and make sure everyone is in agreement.

Finally, what are your thoughts about ‘Follow up’? Many businesses get leads who might be interested but things never seem to close. What are some good tips for a business leader to successfully follow up and bring things to a conclusion, without appearing overly pushy or overeager?

If you’ve followed the five best practices of Iceberg Selling, your followup should be on autopilot. It will help you avoid the check-in zone, where you start following up again and again and have trouble getting a response.

In a previous question, I talked about a drivership mindset, where you take responsibility for moving the sales process forward without being pushy. Sometimes salespeople will avoid pushiness by saying, “I sent the proposal. The ball is in the customer’s court now.” But even ideal customers who are interested in buying your solution get busy, or they don’t know what to do to move forward. Many of them will appreciate a reminder to move forward, or a phone call where you paint them a clear picture of what they can do to move forward with your solution.

If you still have trouble with closing, but you think the customer is a good fit, you may have to backtrack a few steps to explore their iceberg further. Revisit your past communications, and if you think there are missing pieces in your understanding, ask them if they are still in the market for what you’re offering and whether they’re willing to go back with you and share more of their iceberg. From there, you can use your new knowledge to get the stalled deal back in motion.

As you know there are so many modes of communication today. For example, In-person, phone calls, video calls, emails, and text messages. In your opinion, which of these communication methods should be avoided when attempting to close a sale or follow up? Which are the best ones? Can you explain or give a story?

I think at the end of the day, the real question is — how do I meet my customer where they are? How do they want to be communicated to, and what have we mutually agreed to as our next step and our way of making that next step happen? Who else on their team needs to be looped into your communications? If you’ve honored how the customer wants to communicate, the actual mechanic of it, whether you’re using text or a phone call or email, is already decided. This way, you’re aligning to what your customer has told you is the most efficient way to communicate with them. Aligning with them creates an opportunity to meet your client where they are on their journey in one more way. If a phone call is most efficient, for example, move toward that, but if you agreed on email, do that. Focusing on hacks or mechanics just puts you more at risk of being salesy or pushy.

Ok, we are nearly done. Here is our final “meaty” question. You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

If I could start a movement, it would be to support a culture of people learning what’s below the surface. Whether this has to do with an individual, comment, pitch, company, or anything else, before making a judgment, people would seek to understand what’s truly going on. It would help shift a cultural focus to mutual understanding and co-creating solutions.

How can our readers follow you online?

To learn more about my book, Iceberg Selling, visit icebergselling.com. If you are interested in the work that my team and I do, visit improvingsalesperformance.com. I also invite you to follow me and my company, Improving Sales Performance, on LinkedIn.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlbeckeriii/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/improving-sales-performance-usa

Thank you for the interview. We wish you only continued success!