You've all had friends, colleagues, or coworkers who've left the recruiting world burnt out & frustrated with their production. Maybe you yourself have felt the same at times. Well, quit selling & start building relationships!
I'm not suggesting you abandon fee negotiations & contracts; this is more of a day-to-day mindset on how you approach the way you communicate with your candidates & clients. The following article illustrates this point very well, and is re-posted here with Mr. Keenan's permission. Enjoy:

Why You Want to be a Teaching Organization Not a Sales Organization
by Jim Keenan

Do you want to know where the biggest opportunity for sales growth is today? Are you looking for a new, sure fire sales strategy that will increase sales, get you more leads, accelerate sales cycles, reduce cost of sales and improve close rates?

Do you want to know what is the one thing you can do to blow out your number and crush the competition?  It is to turn your sales organization into a teaching organization.

Turning your sales organization from a selling organization to a teaching organization is a game changer. Customers today are looking for more than product information. They want more than pitches and price concessions. Today’s costumers want to learn something that will help their business grow. They want information they didn’t have. They want someone who can help them navigate their complex world. Today’s customers want to be taught.

Take a look at your website.  Can visitors learn anything from it? I don’t mean something about your products or services, but about the industry, regulation, trends, how to tackle a common industry challenge etc? Is your website set up to teach potential customers when they visit? It should be.

Does your sales playbook contain unique industry information your sales people can use to educate their prospects?  Does your sales playbook contain tools your sales people can point prospects to like video’s, eBooks, and white papers that would help prospects better understand HOW to tackle the challenges they are facing? Or, is your sales playbook all about your products and services. Does your sales playbook support your sales people in teaching their customers?

Do you train your sales people to teach? Do you provide sales training that teaches how to teach?

Do your sales pipeline reviews and opportunity review meetings evaluate new and timely educational topics that would resonate with prospects? Does your marketing organization regularly provide the sales team with new, updated, industry data and “how to” information they can use to educate prospects?

Is your sales team built to teach or to pitch?

If, in your mind, you’re saying; “pitch,” it’s time to consider a new approach.

Customer buying habits have changed. Social media; YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Blogging, Linkedin have all provided customers and prospects with amazing amounts of information. They know who you are, what you sell, your competition, what people think of you, your customer service, your warranties, everything. In most cases they know all of this before they ever show up on your website or make a call. Customers and prospects no longer need us to talk about us. They don’t need our websites, our sales people or our fancy collateral to learn about us. They learn everything they need to without ever having to connect with us. Because of this, your customers and prospects are much further along in the buying process before they ever contact us and that, my friend, changes the game, BIG TIME!

Customers and prospect are making their early buying decisions based what you know, not on what you have in your product portfolio. It’s your expertise they want the most!

Become a teaching organization takes a commitment. It’s a cultural change. It doesn’t mean you no longer sell. Selling is what we do, that won’t change. It’s how we sell that changes. Turning your organization into a teaching organization means providing your sales people with new customer centric information. It means providing customers with information and data that can help them run their business. It’s not more product information or product slicks. It’s not information focused on you and what you sell but rather information on what they sell and what they need to be successful. It’s creating a teaching organization that has more information and knowledge than your customers and prospects. It’s an organization that knows how to use the information and knowledge to educate the customer or prospect in something they didn’t know and needed to know.

Sales organizations that become teaching organizations become game changers. Turn your sales organization into a  teaching organization. I think you will like the results.

Jim Keenan is founder and partner of A Sales Guy Consulting.  A Sales Guy Consulting is a straight forward consulting company that relishes the challenge of taking companies from point A to point B in as little time as possible.  You can find Jim at his A Sales Guy blog.

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