“If you don’t care where you are going, any road can take you there.” – attributed to Lewis Carroll, from Alice in the Looking Glass
Sales is a profession, and professionals are well-trained and practiced. When it comes to business development success you need to have the right Mindset, Activities, and Process, a MAP to get you to quota. There is a big difference between standing in a pool and splashing the water with your hands, and swimming in a specific direction, and so it is with selling. Let’s start swimming, shall we? Put succinctly:
Sales begin with a positive, dispassionate
Mindset,
the by-product of the
Activities
performed in the course of executing a deliberate
Process
Mindset: “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius
No one wins every deal, and when you realize that while you need deals, and you don’t need this one, it sets your mind free. To be successful, be dispassionate, go into every opportunity with the thought you are not going to get this deal. This sets your mind free to listen as to why the prospect wanted to meet with you in the first place. They buy for their reasons, not yours. Do you know what their reasons are? If not, how can you speak to the outcome they seek?
Consider the last deal you lost. Did you know what they were really trying to do? If not, you lost to the person who did.
Activities: “Sales is an outcome, not a goal. It’s a function of doing numerous things right.” – Jill Konrath
If selling is a function of doing numerous things correctly, what are the high-value, high-impact activities that you must perform consistently, daily, and in what measure? Most business developers focus on putting the sale first, when in reality, the sale is the end. The #1 activity? The primary responsibility for a successful business developer is to create a consistent stream of high-quality introductions and referrals. Do that and you’ll never lack opportunities.
Do you know how to set that flywheel in motion? If not, ask me, I’m happy to share it with you.
Process: “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” – W. Edwards Deming
Boil every sales methodology from the most complex to the simplest, and it is the same process. Can you write it down in under three minutes? No? I didn’t think so, and there is the problem. If sales is a profession, and it is, how can you not know the basics and expect to thrive? Would you hire an accountant or doctor as poorly trained as you or your sales team? How about a plumber? No? What are you going to do about it?
Reading a book is nice, but you can’t learn to sell from reading a book. Going to a half-day or full day of training is good entertainment, but how much do you retain by the next day? Your accountant didn’t take a day-long seminar, nor did your doctor. They took courses, got coached, and worked at it.
Now you know the road MAP to sales success. Start walking in a direction with an end in mind; stop splashing in the pool.