Three simple, intertwined concepts that can propel your sales, yet are easily overlooked in our daily hustle.
I’d like to share my insights on incorporating these simple concepts to drive your sales.
Gratitude.
Even when things don’t go as expected, start your day with gratitude to boost results.
As I write my first blog, I have a huge sense of gratitude to the many people who helped me succeed in my 30 year sales journey. I’m enormously grateful to those who invested in training me and passing on their own sales lessons. Training and mentoring takes time and money and not every company or leader is willing to commit. Appreciate those who do, so that others have the opportunity for a fantastically rewarding profession.
I deeply appreciate my peers who found the time to listen to me practice presentations, help me brainstorm and test new ideas. These selfless acts of kindness helped me add polish and confirm strategy as I pursued new business.
I am grateful to those prospects who turned me away, challenged me on price, or hung up on me. You toughened me and increased my determination to eventually win your friendship and your business. To those who awarded the business to a competitor, I thank you too. You helped me better understand the buyer’s journey and made me fine tune my value proposition.
Service.
It’s not about winning. It’s about serving.
The highest performing salespeople go into meetings not with the intent to win the business, but to serve. Closing the deal is a byproduct of the attitude of service.
High performers start with a passionate care and curiosity about their prospects, asking insightful questions to understand how and if they can help. That passion is infectious and prospects gravitate to it. While deals today are typically made by multiple stakeholders with varying goals, buyers are more likely to buy from someone they trust. An attitude of service with behaviours that match are key to creating trust.
Despite my desire to serve, I didn’t always win the business on the first go-round. But unlike my competitors who dropped the prospect cold, I stayed in touch, continuing to look for opportunities to assist. On many occasions I was rewarded when the incumbent became complacent and the prospect turned to me, because they knew I would take care of them.
I also appreciate the prospects where my care and service didn’t matter. They taught me to protect the house and my personal brand. While I seldom won their business, I learned to avoid them and steer them to a competitor instead - those clients invariably added client service overhead because their sense of partnership was a one way street.
Teamwork
Every salesperson has a ‘superpower’ - a skill or ability that you are incredibly good at. You can spend time fixing your shortcomings, or you can leverage others who have the superpower you lack. The combined energy is more powerful than expected.
In my early sales years, I largely sold alone. I tried to learn as much as I could about every aspect of the business so I didn’t have to take time to ask others to help me. It seemed logical, but wasn’t sustainable -I couldn’t afford the time away from my core competency of building relationships.
As I became more seasoned, I started bringing subject matter experts (SME’s) to my meetings. I benefitted by learning from them, but there was an unintended benefit - it fostered deeper trust with the prospect because they were hearing the answers from an expert, not the salesperson.
Bringing the SME’s also helped the prospect put human faces to the company behind the deal. Prospects saw our teamwork in action, they appreciated how we had each other’s back and they got a taste of our corporate culture. All of this combined to put us ahead of solo sellers.
Closing Remarks
Just as the price page is always last on the RFP (a little sales humour for you) - here is my short synopsis:
Take time to recognize and give thanks to those who help you - a simple random act of bringing them coffee or a moment of appreciation is all that is needed. Let the SME’s into your world to understand what you do, and give them the opportunity to help you. They’ll appreciate it. They can supercharge your credibility and help accredit your company as a marketplace leader. Finally, adopt an attitude of service as part of your daily practice, whether it’s sales, friendships or everyday life.
Thank you for the opportunity to share, and wishing you good selling.
- Tim