UK Election - lessons sales people can learn

As we get towards the end of the election campaign, we thought it might be interesting to see if we could draw any comparisons with how the UK parties have run their campaigns and the basics of selling.

Getting the message right
As with any sales message, there are 2 things that will drive success, content and delivery. As sales people our aim is to have a message that links to the needs of the customer, and is delivered in a manner that ensures the customer has confidence in our ability to deliver. For many of us, a key issue is to get the balance right between selling ourselves (personal credibility) and selling our organisations.

So what has this got to do with the election campaign?

Messaging

• All of the main political parties started off in broadcast mode, telling us what they were going  to do for us. As the campaign has progressed they have moved from telling to re-acting to the issues raised by the electorate.
• The niche parties have been able to have more targeted messages which meet the needs of their target audiences.

Delivery

• The debates highlighted the value of effective delivery, often to the exclusion of relevant content. I was personally fascinated how many times the party leaders said "I", a clear sign that they had been coached to create some emotional link with the audience and the viewer (just remember how Nick Clegg repeatedly used the name of the questioner and said "I will answer your question")
• Clearly the debates put all the focus on the individual leaders and their ability to communicate, however as the campaign has progressed, focus is moving away from the individual and parties are attacking parties and their ability to deliver.

So how do these link to sales.

1. From a messaging perspective, the more targeted you are in terms of your audience, the easier it is to connect. Niche specialist suppliers always find it easier to connect, at a message level, than the larger generalist. However the generalist can build credibility by focussing on the wider picture.
2. From a delivery perspective, the emotional link is key, if your customer can connect with you they are more likely to listen to you. But there needs to be depth to the message, or your competition can use your lack of depth as a major competitive selling point.

Getting the organisation right

It is easy for any of us to work out who has the tightest organisational control during this election, and just like any sales organisation, political parties must create an environment that makes it easy to gain votes.

In the last few days inconsistent messages have been delivered by some of the parties, and instead of focussing the electorate on all the positive messages they have, commentators have focussed on the inconsistencies, e.g. to tactical vote or not.

Just think how your customers would feel if they received mixed messages from your organisation, e.g. outsource versus insource, or full service versus "value brand". The organisation plays a large role in ensuring that we as sales people are able to do our job, and if the organisation is not truly sales focussed it can easily become the barrier to success.

Let's not forget the people
It has been interesting to see how the parties have brought out their experts to focus on key areas, or to deliver specific messages. All the parties recognise the need to use a range of people with specific skills to drive their message home.

One of the interesting aspects of the post TV debate period is how focus has moved to the depth of capability within the competing parties. Some of the parties have been focussing on "look beyond the style of the leader and focus on the substance", and this is being countered by the parties bringing out more people, where possible.

So how does this relate to sales, a successful sales campaign requires a team, led by the sales person, but with experts being brought in as required. The experts bring credibility and the perception of depth of capability. Furthermore a good team matches individuals to decision makers within the customer. This peering ensures that specific messages can be delivered to targeted audiences by specialists

So what are the lessons we can learn?

1. Selling is not about telling, it is about listening and addressing the identified issues
2. Effective delivery of the message requires an emotional link with the customer
3. Ensure you have a clear and consistent message, and that everyone uses it.
4. To be credible as an organisation, sales people must learn how to use their colleagues throughout the sales process.

Whatever the outcome of the election tomorrow, valuable sales lessons can be learnt. Think how much money the parties spend on crafting messages and coaching the leaders. Learn from what they do, identify what works and then use similar techniques.