The hardest thing of all is in the sales environment to stay focused.
This requires discipline. Discipline means the ability to see something through… NOT as is traditionally thought of as a means of enforcing draconian military style sales processes. In fact it is just such approaches to discipline that are a major cause of problems in the first place.
“You work here so you WILL spend x% of your day cold calling and you must make x amount of appointments etc”.
Why selling is like going to war…
If one looks on the military as a standard of processes then one of the greatest advantages a military leader has is “flexibility”. On the eve of battle a general has a strategy that is put into operation. But when battle is commenced, he does not rigidly stick to the battle plan but sees how the strategy works and amends and changes it according to different situations and how the opponent acts as well.
The general could be said to qualify each situation and act accordingly. Discipline in the business world should be about using every ability the individual and company has in making decisions and learning from them.
There is a saying, now infamous for President Bush’s failure to say it correctly, and it goes like this – Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me.
Why failure can spell success
Failure, especially in such an economic climate as we are facing at the moment is anathema to sales people and businesses – no one wants it. We cannot afford to have failures. But unless you convert 100% of every lead and opportunity, guess what? You are going to get failure.
It is both the company’s and individual’s response to failure that will determine how successful a business is. Failure is not when you do not get the result that you wanted. Failure is when you did not get that result and did nothing about it.
If you look at many of the successes and failures in the business world, though there are many contributing factors, one of the most common is how that business has adapted to unexpected events and failed activities.
Every successful entrepreneur from Bill Gates to Richard Branson has failed at one or more points in history: their ability to adapt and learn is their defining characteristic. Failed businesses in contrast usually have the common attribute of not adapting and learning.
Qualify the situation and you qualify the lead
Qualification profiles - whether stringently created within systems like SymVolli or not -are a continuously evolving process. Not getting the expected result within the sales process means qualifying the situation to understand what is happening and being flexible enough to take the appropriate action.
This could mean that the individual sales opportunity is completely new to the company or that the overall qualification model for this particular sales process has changed. This could mean adjusting the criteria by which you qualify whether to proceed with a lead and throughout the sales cycle of that opportunity.
It could also mean adjusting the process, methodology, the market focus or the product offering.
The important factor is that we have information to base our decisions. That has all come about because we remained focused on the goals and objectives and the processes involved. We learnt from our experience but we continue to learn from our experience.
No process is rigid enough that it cannot be questioned and improved upon.
In essence one must continue to learn from the past to improve the present and realise our future.