Neil Rackham is one of the best known modern sales leader who combines expert theoretical knowledge with practical intuitions to deliver effective sales-as-a-process tools.
Sales-as-a-process dates back to NCR's founding father, John Henry Patterson. Rackman, the author of Spin Selling, has updated some of Patterson's original thinking about how to create an effective sales process.
One surprising result is that passion won't produce sales. Because passionate people aren't conscious listeners.
Neil Rackham explains why in this video -pay attention to the first 2:12 minutes. [Neil is talking about entrepreneurs, but he could be also talking about franchisors.]
The fundamental reason why [franchisors cannot sell franchises] is that, almost by definition, a franchisor has a deep enthusiasm for what they are doing and their products.
And one thing we know about selling, we've known for nearly forty years, the best selling isn't at all about your products and what you can offer, it is very much about the customer and their needs.
And franchisors very often swamp the customer.
After all, since 1970 research has shown that in a sales call the more time a customer talks the higher the probability that the call will succeed.
In my experience, franchisors cannot help themselves. When they get in front of the customer, they want to tell them The Story.
It can be a very compelling story, it just doesn't cause the franchise prospect to buy, as well as if they focused on the prospect and listened to what the prospect needs were and worked from there.
[Franchisors do listen], but they listen very selectively.
They are listening for how can I get in and start talking about what I can offer.
[But] when you study highly effective sales people, one of the things you find is that highly effective sales people talk about solutions or what they could offer very late in the sales process. Less effective sales people cannot wait until they can start talking about what they can do.
Franchisors are impatient people.
And often, they will jump in too quickly and start talking about answers. And the prospect listening to them doesn't link that answer to their needs. Because prospects have to start with their needs and move towards what fulfills their needs. The prospect doesn't want to start with the franchisor's products and start to work backwards.
Too many franchisors say: "We have this Great Thing, Do You Need it?"
And the answer the prospect often gives is: It is a Great Thing, But We don't Need it".
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Until franchise sellers focus on what their franchise candidates want when considering a franchise they will continue to be disappointed with the number of franchises sold and the quality of the franchisees recruited.
I see a lot of QSR franchise websites which try to sell franchisees by touting the value of the food - mimicking their consumer pitch.
It just falls flat.
The video reminds me of the classic riddle -
Question - "what's the opposite of talking"
And we all get the answer wrong - listening!
Answer - "waiting to talk"
Rackham does a great job demonstrating how passion get's in the way of listening to probable buyers, discovering their problem and when the time is right offering the right solution.
Another interesting piece on Rackham.
https://hbr.org/2014/12/why-sales-ops-is-so-hard-to-get-right