Category: VP Sales

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

The Problem is ALWAYS How You (And I) Think

Lest you think that I’m always talking about YOU in this column, suffice it to say that we are all guilty of stinking-thinking. In fact, I believe that virtually every problem/issue we have in our life has to do with lousy philosophy.

In sales and business…same thing applies.

If you’re having trouble with price pressure, it gets back to how you think about your value…and thus, how you communicate it to the world at large.

If price pressure is your thing (meaning, customers don’t want to pay you your asking price) then it begins with your thought process on how you depict / illustrate / position your value.

Not getting to the right level inside your prospect company?

It’s a thinking problem first. How are you thinking about your value…and where that value shows up inside your clients? Do you think it’s Purchasing Agent “value” only? Then, that’s where you’ll end up? Change your perception of your own value to be more “presidential.” Afterall, if you don’t ‘get’ your value, how do you expect others to?

Can’t Close The Sale?

Thinking problem. Stop thinking about pressuring someone to close. Begin thinking about your solution as solving a problem that is driving the prospect crazy.  If their pains aren’t driving them nutty, then why are you suggesting change?

Oh, because you need the business, you say. Well, that brings me to another thinking problem.

Neediness

Stop the neediness bit. It doesn’t work so well anymore. We’re all looking for a bit of certainty in an uncertain world. The last thing a scared prospect needs is a scared sales person.

Feb 25, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post

Stuck In The Comfort Zone

Occasionally, I’ll ruminate on an idea and without so much as a second thought, I’ll publish it to this blog. Often I have no predetermined result – and sometimes I look a few weeks later only to ask “What was I thinking here?” I’m just getting stuff out there to comment on. This is one such post.

You can guess we get a lot of resistance when we begin our work with people. Sometimes it is out-and-out resistance…(“I do not need this. I’m fine the way I am.”)  But sometimes it is subtle resistance (“Yes, I love what you’re teaching me…I just haven’t used any of it.”)

[It's not that way when people pay for their training on their own...but IS that way when companies invest in their people.]

The problem is that there is deeper issue: How does one come to the conclusion that they need to change their behaviors and habits? Not an easy question…but one that MUST be asked.

We don’t know any other way that to say “WAKE UP.”

“Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go the grave with the song still in them.”–Henry David Thoreau

Most of us just don’t, or can’t, get out of ourselves long enough or far enough to see what we can improve on. But I have two harsh techniques that will force you out of your comfort zone darn near immediately.

1. Add a 0 To Your Income. I heard Brian Tracy suggest this. His point is that once you say, “My goal is to ‘do what I did last year + one 0′,” you are forced into a radically different mentality. Now, you don’t have to be a math major to know that is a 10X increase in income. But the issue now is “How” do I get there? Once “How” becomes the issue, your mind races quickly to the skills and behaviors that matter.

It also forces you out of your comfort zone because to add that much dissonance, requires you to reinvent yourself. You don’t have to reinvent for 10% increase….you do for 1000% increase.

2. Assess The Top 1%. What this means is take the income earners/business builders of the top 1% of companies or people in your industry. We like this one as well because it forces you to compare yourself to your industry best. Why not? You’ve always heard, “Contrast, don’t compare.” But why not? Could it be that there are doing some little things that you don’t even know about?

Could it be that they know something you don’t? Could it be that they have a marketing process puts yours to shame? Could it be that they have a sales cycle or a diagnostic process that yours pales in comparison to?

Hard to believe isn’t it? That someone else could be more skilled than you?

Well, it actually does come down to skill.  The difference between you and the best is skill. The difference between you earning $125,000 and 1,250,00 is skill(s).  But until you accept that your gap must be defined as a “skill” problem, you’ll never care about improving them.

Incidentally, you sales managers/leaders: This is a great exercise to take your team thru at your next sales meeting. Forget the “pipeline” conversation and move to a truly inspiring conversation.

Feb 24, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post