We talked last about using your new sales skills to your advantage and getting your first big customer to “Sign”. I encouraged you to stay involved after the sale even if that’s not the general practice in the office, to help “turn your personal word into gold”! The Challenge I presented was to Make it happen the way you said it would!
So how’s that working out for ya? Did I say it would be EASY?
Shifting the paradigms in an existing sales structure may seem impossible at first. Then it starts to seem possible after you learn the ropes, the departments, and the personalities. When you absorb enough of this to understand that the pundits, the senior staff personalities, and many of the unduly complicated processes are kept in place “because we’ve always done it this way” or “Oh, the boss will never change”, what do you do?
At this point your paradigm shifting momentum may be threatening to wane. Helping to transition these guys into the 21st century version of sales operations now seems like a lot of work. Vince Lombardi was a pretty well-known guy whose life revolved around “selling” the game of football. One of his most famous quotes is: “The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price.”
To which you may say: “The “price”? What “price”? I thought I was getting paid to do this. Right again! You are being paid, whether on commission or salary to close deals with customers that turn a profit for the company and perhaps a bonus for you. However, you see that as the “newbie” you can only be the best that YOU can be if you help modernize the slow or redundant systems that are in place. When I found myself in the same position a few years back, the boss, Dennis once told me “I hired you to sell stuff for me, not to change the world! If you want to change the world, do it on your own time!”
Well, I remembered that one. In a nutshell I think that is the “price” Mr. Lombardi was referring to. If you want to make changes that no one has really sponsored before, you will end up putting in a lot of uncompensated effort. Not only does that seem to be the norm today, but with so many employees and competitors doing this simply to get ahead and be noticed, it has become EXPECTED!
About “the Price” Mr. Lombardi continued: “Once you agree upon the price you and your family must pay for success, it enables you to ignore the minor hurts, the opponent's [i.e. competition’s] pressure, and the temporary failures. It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up. Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.”
As a sales professional, the word “quit” is not allowed in your vocabulary. Depending on the level of resistance you perceive, you may need however, to “temper” your enthusiasm. Small doses. Find the radio station Brian Tracy calls WII-FM (What’s in it for me?) and apply it to the interests of others. Then target incremental improvements that will streamline in small obvious ways first and highlight the ways they make processes easier for everyone. Oh, and more profitable too!
Feed the uncooperative giant with a small spoon, not a fire hose!
You can do this!
K.B. Elliott is a Detroit area contributing writer for Nexxt. Having worked seats on both sides of the sales table for over 30 years gives unique perspective to the sales process and the varieties of successes to be had.
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