This week I was listening in on one of our virtual Sales Wisdom workshops. After hearing the candor between the instructor and the participants about how to respond to a particular question, it struck me that there is a big difference between the “right answer”, and the “right conversation”. The role play in the workshop takes real world situations that the participants experience, and strives to have them rethink their automatic responses in tense or confrontational situations. The hope is to engage the conversational partner in a meaningful dialogue rather than directly answer their question (which often can shut down the conversation). Naturally some participants are a little uncomfortable with this approach and have been inclined to answer the question right-out, especially when they did not see any adverse effect on their or their company’s position by doing so.
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Willpower & Personal Performance
“There are 3 types of strength” I tell my kids. “Physical strength, intellectual strength, and the strength of your willpower.” I’ve been telling them this because I see them stuck in a lot of the frustrating patterns of behavior that I also see in myself… and that I’ve been working on continuously for years. So much of our performance in our jobs and in our roles in life will ultimately be tied to our strength of will. For a lot of my customers and coaching clients, their will is tested most when they move from an operations or technical role (engineering, consulting, etc.) into a role with sales responsibilities. It is very often willpower, not knowledge, that limits our performance.
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