I overheard a CFO and CTO of a software company talking to each other at the airport. The CTO says to the CFO, “Hey, do you know the difference between a used car sales rep and a software sales rep?”
The punch line was, “A used car salesrep KNOWS when they’re lying!” and the CTO laughed at his own joke.
To the CFO’s credit, he did not laugh. I was certainly tempted to confront the CTO myself. He thinks he’s putting down the sales reps that work for his company. That’s a big issue. A bigger issue is WHY the company’s software sales rep don’t know they’re lying.
I say it’s because at the company sales training, they tell the reps, “Our solution does A, B and C while taking out the kitchen sink!” Of course the reps are going to share that line with their prospects while believing it to be true. Why wouldn’t it be true? Doesn’t the company want to be successful?
But the solution does NOT do all those things. And then the prospect evaluates the solution and finds that it does not do feature B. It certainly doesn’t touch the kitchen sink. Thus, it’s the sales rep that’s accused of lying when the fault really lies (no pun intended) somewhere else.
So who’s the joke on?
All About Referral Selling 