Selling
Success is a Mental Game
This assertion is as true in business as in sports, individually and in teams. So, let’s break it down.
When I watch my local football team, I occasionally see a shift in facial expressions from excitement to frustration – often right before the end of the first half. Sometimes, they recover during halftime and come out renewed and ready to win, but the “gloom and doom” expressions usually translate into suboptimal performance and mistakes. It is frustrating because you know they have the talent to win.
The same thing happens in business – especially in Sales. Sometimes it occurs in the middle of a sales cycle, similar to the example above. Unfortunately, too many people allow a couple of data points to determine their future trajectory. Why is that?
Whether you own a company or manage a group of people, good leaders aim to optimize their workforce by finding the balance of factors that result in happy and loyal employees who are doing their best for themselves, their customers, and their company. There are a ton of motivational theories out there, such as Expectancy Theory, Reinforcement Theory, the Role of Instrumentality, Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation, and more. Since one size rarely fits all, the challenge becomes an effort of reward-focused personalization, which can be a lot of work.
People will often win or lose before they even start. Their negativity, self-doubt, and anticipation of failure become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This post focuses on self-motivation, attitude, mindset, and creating the habits that lead to better success.
Below are four simple questions that someone should ask themselves when they question their ability to succeed in a position, company, or industry. There are always many ways to point the finger of blame elsewhere, but the first step should be to look in the mirror.
- Do you believe that you can win where you are today? If not, why are you still there? Customers and prospects can sense insincerity, so if you don’t believe in yourself, you shouldn’t expect them to believe in you. Maybe the company is terrible, and everyone is failing. If that is true, then it is probably time to look elsewhere.
- What have you learned from past successes and failures, and how have you adapted based on those lessons learned?
- What are some early indicators of success or failure that you have identified? Are you adapting to the situation if you run into those indicators now? It could be that the best approach is to cut your losses on this attempt and move to the next sooner rather than later (i.e., qualify out quickly).
- What are you doing to improve your skills? It is funny how small, continuous improvement efforts lead to a greater sense of confidence. Greater confidence often translates to increased success.
I have found that consistently doing the right things is the best way to maximize my success. Start developing habits and routines that have led to winning in the past, but don’t expect them to work forever. Everything changes, and you should change too. Look for things that are working for others, try them out, and if they work, incorporate them into your routines.
Success truly is a mental game, and everyone can win. The person who continues to win over time is the person that does not get stuck in time. Be curious, get excited, and adapt. And once you get there, start helping others. It is nice having mentors, but also great to become one.
As the saying goes, The rising tide lifts all boats. Winning can be a team sport, but it begins with individual contributors having winning attitudes. Unfortunately, the same can be said for losing, so decide now what you want and go forward with energy and confidence.
Sales Success for the Individual Contributor
Let’s start with two of my favorite personal quotes:
“Luck is what happens when Preparation meets Opportunity.” – Seneca, Roman Philosopher.
“Become the person who would attract the results you seek.” – Jim Cathcart, Author of “Relationship Selling”
Why are those quotes important? Because they point out that you are responsible for your own success.
Great companies with great products or services and great management teams make it much easier to be successful, but anyone who is prepared, curious, focused, motivated, and has a system that they follow can become successful anywhere.
My experience has shown the following to be true:
- Without preparation and understanding of your prospect, their customers, and their competition you are unlikely to succeed. This understanding provides the foundation for asking relevant questions to both understand the real need and to effectively qualify a deal in or out.
- Most sales occur because a Product or Service solves real and immediate business problems, or ties into strategic business initiatives.
- Your early goals should be around getting the meeting, having real discussions, understanding problems from your prospect’s perspective (including the terminology they use to describe those problems), and helping them describe what success “looks like to them” and why that is important (logically and emotionally). At this stage, you are learning and positioning, not selling.
- Deal qualification is an essential skill that enables you to focus your time and efforts where you are most likely to succeed. The faster you are able to “qualify out” a prospect that is not a good fit the better it is for you and that prospect. Eternal optimism is not a plan for filling your pipeline.
- If you have a supporting team then make sure that everyone understands the situation, their role and contribution to success, and what you want them to focus on. Never assume that things will just fall into place on their own.
- Have a repeatable process to track activities, measure progress, and identify the best next steps. Remember, “To measure is to know.” (Lord Kelvin)
- The sale is not over until your new Customer is happy. Become their internal advocate within your own organization and you will be rewarded with the customer’s trust, loyalty, and repeat business.
Ideally your Sales Leadership Team has defined a Sales Strategy, created a couple of repeatable Sales Plays and compelling supporting materials such as: Success Stories; Case Studies; ROI and TCO charts; brief but targeted Demos; and realistic Product Comparison information for internal use. These become the foundation for repeatable and scalable success.
But, if that is missing then collaborate with your peers, seek guidance from your leadership, and get creative. Remember, you are ultimately responsible for your own success so don’t allow things to become excuses or a crutch. In the words of the Buddha, “There are three solutions to every problem: Accept it, Change it, or Leave it.”
To help ensure success you will need to follow a Sales Methodology. Here is a link to a good high-level overview from Spotio.com. I’ve used several and there are pros and cons to each. None of them effectively addresses the successful progression from:
- Initiation, Understanding, and Qualification.
- Defining a compelling Solution and successfully positioning it against the competition.
- Closing the Sale, which is an area that many salespeople fall short.
The sales methodology that I personally believe is one of the easiest to use and most effective is MEDDIC. It is a Deal Qualification process, which is more encompassing than a simple Lead Qualification approach. The biggest blind spots are that it fails to address these four key areas:
- Influencers within a buyer’s organization. Knowing who these people are and what their biases may be will allow you to direct various resources towards each, and ideally provide a multi-threaded approach for each and every deal.
- Incumbents and the sentiment towards those vendors and their products. This is key to not wasting time on an opportunity that you would be unlikely to win.
- Related/Adjacent needs. Being able to tie success to multiple areas provides leverage and increases the value of your solution.
- Timeline/Urgency. This allows you to work backward from milestone dates for efforts like typical lead times for Legal and Purchasing, Integration Testing, QA/QC, Training and Documentation, etc.
Being prepared, creating a common vision of success that is based on the outcome rather than the approach, being responsive, and developing relationships and trust based on knowledge and a desire to help are easy ways to differentiate yourself from many lesser salespeople. Invest in your skills, set aggressive goals, and always hold yourself accountable for your own success.
Do this and you will become part of the 20% of any sales team that ‘moves the dial.’
Are you Thinking About Starting a Business?
The last post on Starting a Business was popular so I thought that I would share a very key lesson learned and then provide links to previous posts that will provide insights as you move forward with launching your own business. If you have any questions just post them as comments and I would be happy to reply.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a great deal of uncertainty and opportunity. For many, now is the ideal time to explore their dream of starting a business and jumping into the waters of entrepreneurship. That can be exciting, fun, stressful, financially rewarding, and financially challenging, all within the same short period of time.
Being prepared for that roller coaster ride and having the ability and strength to continue pushing forward is important. Something to understand is that “Things don’t happen to you. They are the Direct Result of your own Actions and Inactions.” That may sound harsh, but here is a prime example:
When I was closing my consulting business down I trusted my Accountant and Payroll company to handle all of the required filings for Federal, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Colorado – something they stated they would handle and I accepted at face value. Both companies had done a great job before so why would I expect any less this time?
About nine months later I started receiving letters from Ohio and Colorado about filings due, so I forwarded them along to the Accountant and Payroll company. In my mind, this was “old business” and was being handled, plus I had moved on. It was probably just a timing error, something easy enough to explain away.
Skipping forward nearly three years, I had been threatened by the IRS and the Revenue Departments from both Ohio and Colorado. I started with a combined total of nearly $500K in assessments. Slowly that dropped to $50K, and then to $10K. I spent countless hours on the phone and writing letters trying to explain the misunderstanding. It wasn’t until I finally found a helpful person in each department that was willing to listen and told me specifically what needed to be done to resolve that situation. My final cost was around $1,000. I was relieved that this fiasco was finally over.
For the longest time, I blamed both the Accountant and Payroll Service for these problems. Ultimately I realized that it was my business and therefore my responsibility to understand the shutdown process – regardless of who did the actual work. I would have saved hundreds of hours of my time and several hundred dollars by simply gaining that understanding in the beginning.
I was not a victim of anything – this situation was the direct result of my own inaction. At the time it just did not seem very important, but my understanding of the situation and its importance was incorrect and I paid the price. Lesson learned. It was my business so it was still my responsibility to the very end.
Below are the other links. You don’t have to read them all at once, but it would be worth bookmarking them and reading one per day. Every new perspective, idea, and lesson learned could be the thing that helps you achieve your goal a day, week, or month sooner than expected. Every day and every dollar matters, so make the most of both!
- Comments on and a link to an on Curt Culver about Entrepreneurship.
- Comments on and a link to an HBR article about Start-ups and Entrepreneurship.
- Innovation, Intelligent Failure, and Failing Productively.
- Acting Like an Owner – Good Preparation for Becoming an Owner.
- Profitability Through Operational Efficiency.
- What Are You Really Selling?
- Continuous Improvement and a Growth Mindset.
- The Value Created by a Strong Team.
Perspective and Expectations Establish your Starting Point
It appears that we may have seen the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic and now I am seeing more and more articles about the “New Normal” and “Next Normal.” Interestingly enough, I have also been seeing a few articles over the past two weeks about this being an opportunity. Once the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (aka “FUD”) began to diminish, people finally began to look for a silver lining.
Fear is a powerful demotivator, which is why I find it interesting that some managers and executives use it as a tool to help achieve their goals. There may be short-term gains, but the long-term effects can be devastating. In times of chaos (real or perceived), one of the best things that a leader can do is be genuine and concerned for the welfare of their team, communicate in an honest and timely manner, and display confidence as a way to help shift emotions from a negative state towards a positive state. Fear holds you and your team back.
What I find interesting is that two months ago I posted about this unfortunate time being an opportunity – something that led to several negative comments at the time. Three weeks ago I posted about changes that would be coming as part of the “New Normal.” I believe that this is simply insight coming into play, which is one reason why Consultants, great Salespeople, and new Executives are often able to add immediate value to an organization.
As an aside, diversity of backgrounds, experiences, knowledge, expertise, and opinions lead to a variety of perspectives – and that fosters creativity. A best practice in team building is to find people whose strengths help cover your weaknesses.
So, perspective and expectations determine where you begin, and not where you will end. The benefit of having a better starting point is that you should be in a much better position to win. The best part is that you can teach yourself to become better at identifying different perspectives. You may find that it is much easier to understand the big picture of whatever problem you are facing with that new skill.
From time-to-time, we are all faced with situations that we know will suck. Avoidance may be an option but usually isn’t the best option. The military has a saying, “Embrace the Suck,” that essentially boils down to “just deal with it.” Focusing on “the gain” (rather than “the suck”), identifying the small wins along the way, and visualizing success is part of the process that I have personally found helpful to maintaining a positive attitude and an open mind. This simple process helps maintain the balance of optimism with realism, and most importantly creates high expectations.
So, what are your thoughts? Do you want to lead or follow? There is nothing wrong with following, especially when you are contributing to the success of the team. Perspective and Expectations are two tools that can help in any role.
What are you doing to improve CX today?
In challenging times, small frustrations may result in harmful long-term negative sentiment. During this current pandemic crisis your approach to Customer Experience (CX) matters more than ever. Your business needs to protect relationship capital and see this as an opportunity to appeal to your next generation of loyal customers.
Recently I sold a few things on an auction website. The transactions were great and concluded quickly. But, the payment arm of this organization seems to have a bug in their tracking system related to USPS Registered Mail. Their status of the transaction displayed “shipped,” but when you pressed the “Tracking” button it was clear that the package had been delivered a few weeks earlier. Still, they were holding a significant amount of money and there was no clear release date.
While that was a little frustrating, what happened next changed how I feel about this company. I sent email to Support and received canned responses. I used their chat option and spoke to a couple of “people” who were either chatbots or who should be replaced by chatbots because no matter what information I provided the response was always the same, and it was not helpful at all. Interactions that are positive and consistent matter!
Now, think about tens, hundreds, or even thousands of customers or prospects having problems getting information about your products and services, getting assistance with questions or support for problems, and working with your company in general. In this time of increased stress and uncertainty it is important that the customer experience for each anticipated archetype be as ideal as possible in order to increase engagement and loyalty. BTW, those things lead to increases in lifetime customer value, repeat business, and overall business growth.
I’ve always told my teams that, “People buy easy” so as a group or organization our goal is to make conducting business with us as easy and frictionless as possible. By doing that, being fair, and acting with integrity we are rewarded with loyal customers that help our business grow.
Relationships develop over time, and each interaction helps determine the eventual outcome. Understanding what differentiates your company and products in the eyes of your customers and prospects can help you create more meaningful, consistent, and useful interactions. People appreciate a positive customer experience so those efforts may ultimately lead to the creation of Customers for Life.
Now is the time to evaluate your processes, procedures, guidelines, and interfaces. Be extremely critical as you ask yourself, “Is this how I would like to be treated as a customer?” By setting CX as a strategic priority, your business or organization will be focused on ways to eliminate friction and ensure that your customers are treated well. Moreover, by supporting the activities that comprise the customer’s journey you are building a more loyal install base.
Investments in CX today have the potential for an immediate payback as well as increased long-term growth.
Where Ideas, Experiences, and Lessons Learned Intersect 