Salespeople: which game are you in?
Sales is about performances. For at least three reasons.
First: the more you perform, the more you will earn.
Second, if you don't, you might not last long.
Third: because coffee is for closers 🙂 - Alec Baldwin - Coffee's for Closers (HD)
Hence as a salesperson, like any other athlete, you must keep training, learning, and improving to stay on top of your game. The good news is there is now plenty of material accessible (free or not) to do so: company training, books, video, audio… You can wait for your company to provide or pay for those, but I recommend not. At the end, you are the captain of your own ship. So don't depend on anyone.
Most of those materials come with mouthwatering titles, promising a great return on investment (against your time and/or your money). At least they have their marketing right.
But how do you know which training you need? It depends, of course, on your strengths and weaknesses as well as your level of expertise (or seniority). But most importantly – and this is a point that is rarely addressed – it will depend on the game you are in. What? Yes, because thinking selling is just “selling” - a “one size fit all” approach – and therefore thinking a generic training will work for all is equivalent to claiming that whatever sport involving a racket you practice, the same training can work for all. There is nothing further from the truth.
“Because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know; we don't know."
How many sports involving a racket do you know? Take a moment to list them out. What did you come up with? Tennis. Squash. Badminton. Racquetball. Table tennis. You can check the wiki page dedicated to the topic to have a more exhaustive list[1]. I also read that from a certain viewpoint (i.e., physiological and/or mechanical), some sports like Baseball or la Crosse, where the motion when hitting the ball shares some similitude with the "more classical" ones, could be considered to some degree as such. "Racket sports," then. However, how much do they have in common if they fall in the same category? Not much. The size and the shape of the court/field vary (tennis vs. table tennis vs. squash). As well as the format of the racket. The rules too. The technique you acquire, develop, and perfect for one sport won't necessarily translate or be useful in another (try to serve your best tennis shot while playing table tennis). Sometimes you can play “one to one” and sometimes as a team (the rule remains the same, but the gameplay is slightly different). And the list goes on. Same with selling.
If you want your training to be efficient, and before choosing the one that might be the most beneficial, you must first realize which game you are in.
Are you selling a commodity product or a complex solution?
Are you usually dealing with only one buyer, or do you need to face many different counterparts to move along the sale cycle?
Are you on a short sale cycle (days, weeks) or on a long one (several months or years)?
Is it an "on the shelf" product or custom-made, a tangible one that requires manufacturing/delivery/logistics, or intangible?
Are you on your own to sell, or are you leveraging the expertise of a team of technical professionals?
Are your contracts based solely on standards T&C (terms and conditions), or do they require specific, customized, and negotiated terms and conditions (including payment terms)?
Do you work for a leader in your industry or an unknown new entrant/competitor? See: same category "racket sport” but different sports.
How does this translate into sports terms?
Cold calling is the opening of the game or the service. While in some sports, you can win a point on your serve (ace in tennis), it rarely makes you win the game straightforwardly. It will help for sure. On the contrary, if you can't serve, you won't go very far. If you work for a leader in your industry or a famous brand, cold calling might not be your primary focus: the name you represent might get you in. It is worth knowing if you play a one-to-one game (for which your cold calling aptitude must be efficient) or a multi-player game, where having several entry points allows you more latitude on your aptitude. Same if you are a "hunter" or a farmer: this specific skill is requested at different degrees of perfection.
Individual vs. team play. For the latter, you need to orchestrate the team, which requires some specific abilities (team management, coaching). This team management ability can be required in a relatively short span of time or over a longer period. In that case, you need to work on your endurance (project management). This is when looking inward. Looking outward, meaning considering the opponents you are facing, you must take into consideration their strengths and weaknesses, leverage and use them to your advantage and benefit. And this requires a different set of competencies.
Finally closing. Depending on the competition you are in, to reach your objective, you may have to win only one game. That could be the case if you are into a transactional type of sales. If you are more into a "solution-based" or "value-based" type of selling, then your competition is more akin to a championship. To win the title, you will have to play many games against many different opponents; some will win, and some will lose. And you can win many games but still not win the championship. Here I can't resist referring to the great book and movie Moneyball - also because we are celebrating the 20th anniversary. Oakland's A won 20 games straight but still did not win the playoff. On the topic (and much more), I highly recommend you listen to the following episode of Freakonomics .
As you can see, to optimize your resources (time, money) and get the better ROI (for you but also for your team), prior to jumping into any training, first assess which game you are in. It might sound trivial, but I can assure you that it is not.
And no one better than you can assess this because you are on the playing field every day. You play the game every day. You win and lose every day. Doing this assessment correctly will allow you to build on your strength, soften your weaknesses and be more prepared when/if you want to jump from one sport to another.
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If you have not watch it yet.