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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Our Perspective is the Root of Success or Failure
When we are leading, influencing, being called upon as trusted advisors or salespeople, the perspective we choose to take in a situation is fundamentally linked to our success or failure in that situation. Perspective tends to drive how we react instinctively, and our reactions drive our attitudes and our behaviors which then drive our outcomes.
How Attitude Influences Communication
“Attitude” is a funny thing. We often talk about attitude, refer to it, judge it as “good” or “bad”, and yet it is very difficult for us to really get our arms around what it really is. In situations involving persuasion, tact, diplomacy, etc. we are all aware there is a right attitude for the situation and a wrong one. Continue reading
Becoming a Trusted Advisor… Relative Seniority
There’s a lot of rhetoric available about how to become someone’s trusted advisor. It is a coveted position to be in – both in terms of how it strokes our ego as well as being a prime position from which we can grow our relationship (and our role/business) with that person. From my experience in coaching some very smart people, I’ve noticed that being smarter doesn’t particularly create the trust, credibility, or relationship you might seek with your counterpart.
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Conversation vs. Information Exchange
One of the fundamental fallacies that I’ve observed in selling is the idea that information is the key reason people buy from us. I have watched the sales people, sales engineers, techies, and executives I coach share with their prospects how great their technology/process/approach is, how superior their features and benefits are, how the speeds and feeds are this and that, and continue with a litany of details about the product or service in question. It is as if they believe the information has some magic ability to cause the prospect to buy. It isn’t so!!!
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Can you be too smart?
Sometimes a company’s smartest people are rather handicapped when it comes to situations requiring tact, persuasion, influence, leadership, conversational elegance, emotion, etc. This white paper looks at the numerous roles and situations in which this behavior arises, the problems it causes, the workarounds that get implemented to mitigate the issue, and the actual solutions available to generate long term behavioral change in the personalities and interpersonal skills of, well, anybody who shows that narcissistic, know it all, fear of rejection, talks too much, talks too little, talks about the wrong thing, dysfunctional behavior in the workplace. Continue reading
What you DO vs. What you CREATE
I had an interesting conversation yesterday that really illuminated the distinction between the work that we do versus the value of that work to our customers. I was discussing a potential new project with a large customer – a global consulting and outsourcing firm. We got to talking about a competitive vendor who may also be considered for doing the project – a much larger and more established firm with deeper reach into my client (and with cheaper prices).
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The “Truth” is Irrelevant in Sales
The truth is irrelevant in sales. So are the facts. For the most part, all of the “information” we’d be inclined to focus upon conveying is pretty much irrelevant. Why? Because from the perspective of the buyer, all of our (the vendors’) so called truths, facts and info sound fundamentally the same. Even when we DO achieve some strategic or tactical advantage over our competitors, it only lasts a short time before their marketing department and their smart sales people figure out how to counter our claims. And the buyer is left wondering “Who’s really telling the truth?”
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