Why Vulnerability is your sales teams secret weapon

Vulnerability might seem like the last trait you'd want to showcase in sales, but what if admitting mistakes actually strengthened client relationships instead of damaging them? This counterintuitive approach challenges the pervasive myth of the "unbreakable salesperson" that creates unnecessary pressure and ultimately leads to more errors and potential burnout.

Drawing from real-world experiences, we explore how toxic sales environments—where salespeople face public scrutiny, become organizational scapegoats, and operate under unreasonable expectations—damage performance and increase stress. When salespeople feel they must appear infallible, it creates a defensive posture that clients immediately sense and distrust. This defensiveness manifests as the pushy, untrustworthy salesperson stereotype we all recognize and avoid.

The alternative approach embraces our shared humanity. By acknowledging mistakes promptly, being transparent when you don't know answers, and consistently following through on commitments, you build remarkable trust. Clients instinctively respect this authenticity because they recognize genuine problem-solving versus desperate self-protection. This trust becomes the foundation for lasting relationships, effortless repeat business, and valuable referrals.

For sales managers, creating environments where vulnerability is encouraged transforms team dynamics. When mistakes become learning opportunities rather than reasons for punishment, salespeople develop confidence to focus on client needs rather than self-protection. The "under promise, over deliver" philosophy, combined with genuine curiosity about client challenges, creates sales relationships built on mutual respect and long-term value.

Ready to transform your approach to sales? Subscribe to explore more counterintuitive strategies that build authentic connections and drive sustainable business growth.

Welcome to the podcast!

Chapters

• 0:00 The Counterintuitive Power of Vulnerability
• 3:32 The Myth of the Unbreakable Salesperson
• 7:36 How Vulnerability Builds Client Trust
• 12:58 Problem-Solving Over Perfection
• 15:26 Creating Vulnerable Sales Teams
• 18:06 Final Thoughts and Takeaways

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

I must admit that I enjoy things that are a little bit off the wall, that seem counterintuitive when you first come across them, and that's why I wanted to put this podcast together, which is to talk about vulnerability in a sales team. So I just want you to imagine what would happen if you or your top salesperson just admitted a mistake to a key client and, instead of actually losing the deal or losing that account, losing that client that actually strengthened the relationship. So, as I've said, this does tend to sound a little bit counterintuitive, but I think one of the problems that we have in sales as an industry and I think this goes through to both salespeople and clients is that we can't make mistakes. We have to be invulnerable, almost we have to get it right every time, and I think where that takes us, certainly as salespeople, is where we're afraid of making mistakes. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves not to make mistakes. We imagine all kinds of scenarios and questions that somebody could ask us that would result in us making a mistake, maybe focusing on questions that we don't know the answer to, and that, in turn, I believe, results in this pushy salesperson, the sort of sleazy, seedy salesperson that everybody despises, but to me that's kind of a defensive reaction to not wanting to make a mistake. So we tend to sit in the area where we're comfortable things that we know, and we'll push back against clients who just ask questions they want to know because they are looking for a solution to their problem but the salesperson doesn't know the answer to. So that really is the idea behind this podcast. So if you find it interesting, please listen to the end, and if you enjoy it and get value from it, please like subscribe. Visit the website, because there's a lot more information there. There are many more podcasts, there's downloads in some of them and, of course, there's my online sales program. So please take a look at that.

Speaker 1: 2:35

So I really want to dive in a little bit deeper and, first of all, look at this myth of the unbreakable salesperson and I think, where this takes us and it's definitely a culture thing, because I've experienced this myself there's pressure on the salesperson to always get it right, not to make a mistake, and part of that is because sales is a very public role, and what I mean by that is that everybody within the organization knows when sales are going well certainly within the sales team and equally, they know when things are going badly. So if you are someone who has been to or regularly goes to sales meetings and you're not doing well, there's a real dread because most of the sales meetings I'm trying to think pretty much all of the sales meetings I've been to in the years I've been doing this have run through the numbers and it's a great feeling to go to one of those meetings when your numbers are good and you're doing really well. It's a pretty dreadful feeling when you've got to go to these things and you know your numbers are really bad and perhaps even worse, you don't have much in the forecast that's going to pull you out of that situation anytime soon. And, of course, what that does? It piles a lot more pressure onto salespeople and I've even been in a meeting.

Speaker 1: 4:09

I remember going to a meeting in one company and it was a small company but representatives were there from every different part of the company and every one of them blamed the ills of the company on the sales team. In fact, there was a lot more to it than that and I have to admit that I did put up with it for a little while and I made my feelings extremely clear and left the room and I actually remember thinking that I think I've just ended my relationship with this company. And I was driving home and I had a phone call from the owner of the company and he was really apologetic and definitely didn't want me to go. He was very worried that I would leave. And of course I say of course, but basically myself and the sales manager I was working with we managed to turn things around. But it is a real situation and sales often it becomes the whipping boy in some organizations when things aren't going well.

Speaker 1: 5:14

And then, just to add to that pressure, I remember another company. We had this new sales guy who a new sales manager, I should say he'd been a reasonably successful salesperson. It was one of those companies. It was a British company. They tend to promote people. There's an old saying. It was a British company, they tend to promote people. There's an old saying, at least in some companies, that they would promote people to their level of incompetence and that's where this guy went. So one of his rules, what he told the internal salespeople so the people who we would phone in the office to just get updates on what had come in, any messages, anything like that he actually instructed them not to let the sales people know that they had got an order, an order to come in, unless they specifically asked, which to me was just absurd. But this might sound familiar. You may well work in organizations like this that have these ridiculous rules that just add pressure onto the salesperson, because as a salesperson, I would call and I've got other things on my mind. I'm trying to get this done, that done, solve a customer issue, whatever it might be, and it's really helpful if I feel that the internal salesperson has got my back, and in that particular scenario I didn't feel like that at all. There was a really nasty atmosphere in that company and I guess, to add to that, I did leave fairly soon after that.

Speaker 1: 6:40

So the point of talking about all of this is that this unbreakable salesperson, this pressure to get it right every time, can lead to more mistakes, because it just adds to the pressure that salespeople are under and that in turn can lead to burnout all of those situations and when we're under stress we tend not to be perhaps as nice a person to be around and that can impact us not just in our work but in family relationships, in relationships with friends, all sorts of things, so it's not a good place to go to, and this is why vulnerability, I believe, is a really important thing to consider. So how can vulnerability be an advantage? So I think the first thing is that we're all people and as people, we all make mistakes, and I've spoken about this in podcasts before as well, and I'm the first person to admit that I've made many mistakes when I was selling, and in fact, I've said in other places it's one of the reasons that one of the things that contributed to me being a good sales manager and being able to teach sales because I had messed up. I've probably screwed up sales in most of the ways it's possible to do it, but I have learned from those experiences as well, which means that in my own career, I could see a situation developing and going the wrong way, so I knew how to handle it in a way that pulled it back. And also as a sales manager, as a general manager, if I was going out with salespeople developing and going the wrong way, so I knew how to handle it in a way that pulled it back. And also as a sales manager, as a general manager, if I was going out with salespeople, I could see the signs that things were not going well and then I could coach my salespeople into how to turn that around. And equally, as a sales trainer, I could recognize the signs in sales teams that things were starting to go a little bit pear-shaped, to use a phrase, and what kind of strategies could be implemented to turn those back. So the first thing is we're human. We make mistakes. Things will go wrong from time to time. It's just natural.

Speaker 1: 8:52

So being able to be open with people, to own up and say I made a mistake, I think builds trust, particularly with clients. And the important thing with clients. Now it depends on your business, but a lot of businesses rely on long term relationships. They're not just a one off sale and then that client goes and they're never coming back again. One-off sale and then that client goes and they're never coming back again. Most of the businesses I can think of and that I've been involved with have relied a lot on repeat business, whether it's buying additions or extensions to what they've already got or replacing a current model with a newer model. That kind of thing you want to have clients coming back, and repeat business is the best business to have because your involvement as a salesperson is lower than with almost any other kind of business and the overheads as well, from a business perspective, are very low. Where you tend to spend all of your time and effort tends to be with getting new clients. Once you've got them, as long as you nurture them and you maintain that relationship and you maintain that trust, they will come back to you, and getting that second, third, fourth sale takes a lot less effort than getting the first one.

Speaker 1: 10:09

And what happens when you own up to a mistake is that people trust you. So again, I've seen a lot of salespeople who get into this situation, not just in sales, but in pretty much any aspect of life. Almost A lot of people are in a kind of fear environment. It's the kind of environments I've just been talking about that I've experienced in my career, and your impulse then is to cover up the error. Your impulse then is to cover up the error, blame somebody else or not own up to it or not even admit it's there. And then what happens in those situations is things go from bad to worse, so they will definitely get worse, and also you undermine trust both with your client and within your own organization, and that is not a great place to be either. So the best thing to do is to always own organization, and that is not a great place to be either. So the best thing to do is to always own up. I made a mistake, this is what I got wrong, this is what I should have said, this is actually what should have happened, and let's go from there, because then people can fix the problem. You're owning the problem, you're creating an opportunity to correct things.

Speaker 1: 11:16

But think about it. If you're dealing with someone who owns up to a problem when they realize it's there, how do you feel about them? What's your level of trust with them? And equally, how do you feel about somebody who lies to protect themselves and then down the track when things can't be corrected very easily? Everything blows up in your face very easily. Everything blows up in your face. So do not regard owning up as a weakness. It actually improves your trust, both with your client and within your own organization.

Speaker 1: 11:46

So the important thing when you're working with a client and this is something that I talk about a lot is you're there to solve your client's problem. You are a problem solver for your client. So sales, in my opinion, and what I teach is it's not about not being caught out by the client. That's insane. You know you're not there to somehow manipulate them, sell them something that will be no good to them. You are there to genuinely solve their problem and if you listen to the last podcast, I was talking about being genuinely curious. This is really important. So you're there to problem solve. So if you make a mistake, it's really important that you own up to it and you admit you are vulnerable in that situation. But it builds up that trust and it means the client is much more likely to buy from you in the first instance and then to come back to you later.

Speaker 1: 12:44

So how do you use that? How do you use that with a client? Well, the simple thing is, first of all, if you don't know an answer, be open. I don't know the answer to that, but I'll find out. And this is something I'd always do, and what I would always do as well is to commit to a time to come back to the client. So it might be midday the following day, as an example, something like that, and then I would always come back.

Speaker 1: 13:10

Now, I didn't always have the answer. When I was working in Australia, for example, a lot of the companies I was dealing with were based in Europe or in the US or somewhere else. So there's a time difference. There's quite a substantial time difference. So I would rely on sending a mail out to somebody and hopefully getting an answer back overnight. But if that didn't happen, there was nobody there. I could then chase up directly. I'd have to go through that process again. But I always just go back to my client and say look, I said I'd go back to you today by this time of day and I have.

Speaker 1: 13:42

Unfortunately, I haven't had a response from the manufacturer it might be or whoever else it is. So I've taken action to just prompt them again. I've also escalated it within my own organization. So somebody else is also chasing this for me and I will come back to you again same time tomorrow, if that's okay, and just give you an update on where we're at. But again, what you're saying to them is look, I haven't got the answer for you straight away. I am owning this and I will keep on this until I get a satisfactory answer for you. That's essentially the process. So this again builds up trust and confidence in most clients and I always ask people to just put yourself in the client situation. How would you feel if the person you were dealing with, who's there trying to help you solve your problem, but they've got to go back to maybe the original equipment manufacturer or somebody else to get some answers? How do you feel about that? If the person keeps coming back to you on time and giving you an update, even if you're not getting the information that you need straight away? You've still got that faith in that person that they are on your team, they're trying to help you to get this solution. So that's really important. So how does that work if you're a sales manager and you have a sales team? So how does that work if you're a sales manager and you have a sales team?

Speaker 1: 15:15

This is something that for me, when I first got into a management role, was really important. It was creating an atmosphere where we could have that kind of open conversation Because, as I've said, I've been in really unhealthy and quite toxic management environments, and these environments are created by the manager. That's where it starts and that's where it stops. So I would always encourage people to talk about problems, to share problems. We're there to fix it. I am side by side with the people who report to me and we would always go through.

Speaker 1: 15:49

I remember talking to one person who I promoted to a more senior role within my group and in fact they were younger than some of the other people in the group. They were quite new relatively new to sales, but I could see real potential in them and one of the things that I made it clear within the group was that if, for any reason, a salesperson needed to come to me for authorization on a deal or whatever it might be, and they couldn't get hold of me and they needed to get hold of someone urgently, it was to then go to this other person and they were authorized to act on my behalf and give this salesperson authorization to make a kind of non-standard deal. And the conversation I had with the guy who was manager was simply that, look, I don't know what the situation is likely to be, so just give it the best decision you can, the best decision you can Work on the information you have, make a decision and go from there. Now, this decision will either be a good one or it might not be.

Speaker 1: 17:00

Again, this is coming back to the fact that we're people, so if it's a bad decision, what we're going to do is I will go through the decision with you and we'll take that apart. I'm not going to take you apart. We're going to go through the decision and look at where it went wrong. So and this is pretty much how I work with everyone If we make a bad decision, let's go through the decision, let's look at what could have been done differently, so that it becomes a learning experience and hopefully we all move forward and we all do better things. So these are just ideas that you can use if you are in a sales management role.

Speaker 1: 17:35

But if you work for yourself, do the same with yourself. If something goes wrong, just take some time to reflect on it, look at what you could have done differently, make sure that you learn from it. You don't repeat those mistakes. Make sure that you learn from it. You don't repeat those mistakes. So I guess final things to think about. What can you take away from this and apply straight away? Well, just first of all, acknowledge that you're human. If you're a sales manager, create an environment where people can own up, where you can create those more vulnerable relationships. But they're much, much deeper and much, much stronger and they will definitely pay off in the long term.

Speaker 1: 18:13

If you're working on your own, definitely remember to be honest with your clients, because this is how you build up trust. This is how you get those repeat orders without doing a lot of effort. Plus, what you'll get from clients who do trust you is that they'll refer you to other people, and a referral is the next best kind of sale, or certainly the next best thing to come into your business, because you're getting people approaching you for a solution and they're already warm. They're already warm to you. They've heard good things about you. Obviously, your solution needs to fit what they need, but, assuming that happens, you're more than halfway there in terms of making the sale. It's almost just ticking the final boxes and closing the sale. So do not underestimate the power of being vulnerable with your clients and being honest and open, but be reliable.

Speaker 1: 19:05

So the phrase I always use is under promise over deliver, and I would definitely recommend that. So look, I hope you found that useful. Maybe it's got you thinking about what you can do. If it has, please like, subscribe all the other good things. That really does help me as well. Get my message across and please take a look at the online course. I'll give that a final pitch. Okay, thank you again for your time and I'll speak to you in the next podcast. Bye for.