Category: Sales Person

If You’re In Sales, You’d Better Understand “Behavior Change”

This post came from a program I did for a group of sales leaders two weeks ago. It was titled, “The 12 Strategies And Practices of the Super High Achievers.” This was one small part of the 12 steps…and it had to do with behavior change.


We make things overly complicated don’t we? We conjure up all of these clever selling methodologies (we’ve been/are guilt of it, too) and yet the bottom line is that every sales/business person’s role can be boiled down to one simple thing: Behavior Change.

If you’re in sales today, you are in the business of changing behavior.  And here are five components to you being good at it.

1. Rule of The Status Quo

This rule states that if given a choice, most buyers will opt for the status quo–no change. You have to understand that no matter how good looking you are, you are faced with the formidable competitor of “the status quo.”

2. Threshold of Action

We all have different thresholds of change…that imaginary line that once we feel the pain so deeply, we cross and are ready for a change. In sales, most sales people severely underestimate the depth of that threshold (we think it’s really close to the surface. It’s not).

3. Position

You have to be positioned properly (as an expert, we suggest) so that they take you seriously. If you show up unknown, then you must admit it will be hard for them to take you seriously. But if you show up as a blogger/speaker/author/expert, then you ‘must have street cred.’

4. Atmosphere of Truth

FACT: When you show up, people are skeptical. Just as you’re skeptical when sellers show up at your door. So, the first thing is to create the atmosphere where truth can flourish. The more you look/act/sound like an amateur sales person, the more likely your ideas are to get dispelled.  Most people do a lousy job of “environment creation.”

5. Two Systems at Work

In every buyer/seller interaction, there are two distinct systems that are at work. Buyer has one and seller has one. It wouldn’t be so bad if the systems had the same intention. But they don’t. The buyer’s system is designed to get something cheap or not at all. The seller’s system (should be) to help prospects find the problem they have and fix it. Think about how “at odds” with one another those two systems are.

So, if you aim to be a super high achiever, then you had better make a life long (or what’s left of it) study into how people adopt and change behaviors. because virtually EVERYTHING YOU DO depends on your knowledge of it.

Mar 02, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post

What Does It Mean To Reinvent Yourself?

Well…well. Another jobs report has come out and guess what? Unemployment failed to go down much again. (By the way, one thing to do is to stop talking about it…but unlikely that will happen).

But the bigger issue is, “Is our US workforce trained for the jobs that ARE available?”

Answer: NO.

So how does one reinvent one’s self to allow one to become more marketable? (Always makes me sound smart – in my own mind – if I refer to people as “one”).

A good place to begin is an inventory of skills I believe people need today in business. I would also be interested in what you think about this.

1. Leadership.

This doesn’t mean CEO/leadership. This means the awareness that all of us get things done THRU people – not BY people. So, how we relate to others in our orbits makes a huuuuuuge difference. Am I fun to be around? Do I respect other’s opinions? Do I interrupt others? Am I totally AWARE of my own behavior and how it impacts others?

2.  Listening.

Since it’s a skill that was embedded early, it’s one of the hardest to change. Fact is most people SUCK at listening. They would much rather hear themselves speak – than learn how to make millions listening to others. I was at a cocktail party last week and there was a guy there that had made millions inventing a product (not commonly known). People would come up to him…hear what he had done…then offer some kind of lame quip and move to the next conversation.

Isn’t that weird? I bugged the hell out of him all night…trying to get him to let me into his thinking/philosophy, which he was happy to talk about. But few others were curious enough to know how he might help them. (And nearly all of them needed help.)

3. Web.

‘This is a skill that used to be only for web/masters and techies. No more. If you’re in business today, you had better understand how micro-sites work. How blogs operate. How websites can be built easily. How social media works in the context of your business. You can say, “Oh, hell…I’ll just leave that to the techies in my company.” But you’d be dead wrong.

4. Problem Finding.

We talk about this a lot on our podcast (www.advancedsellingpodcast.com) but it applies to everyone…not just sales people. This requires a curiosity that most don’t have. I’m reminded of my friend Phil who came out of nowhere to become the top ranked sales people in a company of 22 sales people. He earned TWICE as much as anyone else in the company. And yet NOT ONCE….did any of the other people approach him and say, “How’d you do it?”

Odd? Not really…because we’re not good problem finders.We can’t be problem finders if we aren’t curious.

5.  Writing.

I’ve said this ad nauseum…you need to learn how to write. Writing has taken on so much more meaning now than it did in 80′s and 90′s. And yet most of us are dreadful at it. It’s not a grammar or spelling thing either – it’s a “story” thing.

What About You?

What do you think it takes to reinvent yourself? Comments very welcome.

Feb 21, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post