Hope is Never a Good Strategy
Did you ever wonder why witnesses in court proceedings are asked for both the truth and the whole truth? The answer is that there can be a gap between the two.
For example, a sales rep might say that a deal has been approved (implying that the deal has been approved for this quarter). This might be true, but the approval might not yield a deal this quarter; hence the truth gap between the truth and the whole truth.
Salespeople aren’t being untruthful on purpose, but, instead, tend to believe any “buying signal” from anyone at the prospective customer. As soon as the customer offers encouragement (even the slightest encouragement), the salesperson believes the deal is happening as planned. This behavior is often referred to as “happy ears.”
What’s sometimes difficult for sales leaders is discerning between the truth and the whole truth when receiving deal updates. Frankly, sometimes, customers also reside in this gap. Again, not necessarily in an effort to mislead the sales rep, but the customer may sincerely not know the complete truth.
The challenge, therefore, is for the sales leader to ask more precise questions to extract the whole truth from the salespeople, for the salesperson to diplomatically challenge positive feedback from the customer and for the customer to be more transparent when responding to inquiries from the salesperson.
From a financial standpoint, the cost of incomplete truths is significant. For example, if there are five reps on the team who each have a $50k deal per quarter that, due to updating with half truths, they lose permanently, the cost to the organization is $1M per year. Of course, this cost could easily be avoided by avoiding the gap between the truth and the whole truth.
This situation is particularly annoying for sales leaders as they prepare end of quarter forecasts; after all, the sales leader wants to believe the salesperson when he/she represents answers as fully truthful. The sales leader challenges the salesperson’s answers regarding the customer’s buying process, but again, often can’t discern the truth from the whole truth, resulting in deals slipping and the sales forecast not being met.
