The reason this work is that it should work.The reason this work is that it should work.The reason this work is that it should work.The reason this work is that it should work.The reason this work is that it should work.The reason this work is that it should work.The reason this work is that it should work.The reason this work is that it should work.The reason this work is that it should work.

The reason this work is that it should work.The reason this work is that it should work.The reason this work is that it should work.The reason this work is that it should work.The reason this work is that it should work.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When we look at the sales person of the future (or any type of marketer), we believe you must see yourself as “publisher / educator” of your constituent base. If you are educating and teaching them how to become better buyers, better consumers of content like yours, wiser purchasers, or give them insight into life/business at a deeper level, then we believe the reciprocation effect is enormous.

Below is a video I shot that lays out some ideas on podcasting specifically…and how you can use it to grow your audience.

Their skills aren’t sufficient to land the jobs that are out there. I commented on this article, but it got filtered, so I thought I’d list it here. This is a response to the many commenters who jumped in to blame the corporations for hiring cheaper workers.

I got tired of hearing it so I left this.

Isn’t life just a series of signals?

You are talking with someone and you get a sixth sense from them about what they’re feeling. Or, you are talking with a client and something just doesn’t seem right.

Or you’re single and you meet another single and there seems to be a chemistry.

The fact is that we send signals, subconsciously, to people we interact with. As leaders, we send signals to our subordinates about what we think of them. If you’ve ever had a leader that failed to inspire you, it was probably not because they didn’t like you — it was because their transmitter was sending a signal that was incongruent with your receiver.

How To Send Different Signals

The best way to change the signals you send is to verbalize them. We teach people in sales to ‘state their intent’ upfront. Hopefully, your intent is to help your customer solve a problem they have (not merely to sell them so you can win the award). So tell your customer that.

If you’re a leader and you want to know whether your team member is inspired by your leadership (really good leaders really care about this) call them aside and ask them. And take notes. If they aren’t inspired and they tell you that, DO NOT DEFEND. DO NOT ATTACK.

In all you do, become more aware of the signals you send. It’s only then that you can change them.

How many times have you received a request from a LinkedIN associate and have no idea where they got your name? Often for me.

Here are my rules:

1) NEVER ask someone to link in if you don’t tell them how / why you are doing it. That’s common courtesy. Help me remember where I met you if I did. If we didn’t meet, tell me what your thinking is as to why we should be linked.

2) NEVER use the default ‘invitation.’ If you can’t muster up 12 words to invite me in, then I must not be worth it for you.

3) ALWAYS, when you Accept an invitation, have the courtesy to write a note. If I am to accept your invitation, then the least I can do since you ‘reached out’ is say, “Thanks.” Or some other version of gratitude.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for sales people, but only if you have some good protocol.