Your Prospect is Not Your Enemy!

We really waste a lot of energy sometimes, don’t we? In a profession that relies on our mind to do the heavy lifting, we certainly fail to think about things in the right way. One example of that is “who we see as the enemy.I’m not sure if it is the high achiever or the warrior in us, but it seems like we sales people tend to see the wrong person as the enemy combatant that we have to overcome, convince, and close. The enemy is NOT the prospect, nor is it the competition.

Poorly designed sales training feeds into that myth–that your job is to compete, is to blow away the enemy. In sales, the enemy is not your prospect nor is it the competitor. The common enemy is the problem to be solved.

When you take the approach–that the enemy is the pain the prospect has (and really take that approach, not just talk the game)–you show up differently in front of the prospect. You will create the environment for truth. And they’ll feel safer in sharing their problems and fustrations with you. 

In your expression of your value, you should refer to the “common enemy” as those problems that “people come to us to solve.” When you do that, you sit on the same side of the desk (metaphorically) as the prospect–not in an arm wrestling match on the other side of the desk.  I’m  OK beating the enemy, but it’s not your prospect.

So the next sales meeting you have–when someone starts talking about the competition as the enemy–enlighten them. Advise them to take that wasted energy and focus it back on the true enemy–the customer’s pain that exists because you aren’t part of his life.

It’s quite refreshing and is one more component of you controlling the process.