Good morning!Hello from Seattle.If you haven’t been to the Chihuly Garden at the base of the Space Needle, I recommend it. I’m a big fan of the artist, Dale Chihuly. His hand-blown glass sculptures are amazing.

Today’s email is addressed to EVERYONE in sales: individual contributors, front line managers, customer success, sales leaders, sales training, sales enablement.

What’s the ONE question a customer will never ask you?That’s right. There’s one question your prospects and customers will never ask a seller. Ever.As a manager, you need to keep this question in mind as you hire, train and coach sellers.As a seller, you need to think about this question as you visualize how you want to be perceived by your buyers.Have you guessed yet? Here’s the one question your buyers will never ask you.“Hey, [insert your name here] could you be more salesy?”Never in my 40+ years in sales has a customer ever asked me, “Andy, we'd really like to buy your product. But, we just think you’re not salesy enough. Could you please be more salesy?"Does your buyer receive any value from that stereotypical sales behavior? No, they don’t.And, yet, those mythical heroic sales attributes (hunter, extrovert, closer, etc.) still to be found in your job postings for open sales positions.And, you're still training and enabling your sellers via your methods and processes to be more salesy. Why is that still the focus of so much training?Look at it from the perspective of your buyers. In their buying process, they are trying to quickly gather the information to make a good purchase decision with the least investment of time and money.How does being “salesy” help them achieve that objective?It doesn’t. And, if it doesn’t help your buyer, it’s not helping you.-Andy