They are known, they can be learned, and we can help. See where you stand.
By Phil Krone, President
Multiple factors influence winning or losing new business. The same is true for becoming a top producer. The ability to convey expertise, be trusted, perform value-creating discovery, stay focused, carry a high level of confidence, to follow up well, and more. Some people put the ability to overcome objections at the top of the success factors list. We don’t. We believe it is much more efficient to minimize objections, and we teach business developers how to do that.
There may be a link between the ability to overcome objections and success, and that link is providing the positive attitude that yes, I’ll be given objections by my prospects, but I’ll remain positive in my attitude and keep working to win the business. That positive attitude carries over to being willing to prospect more despite it being the least favorite activity of most salespeople. This connection between attitude and the amount of time invested in prospecting may better explain success versus the ability to overcome objections.
Martin Sullivan, an author and psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has recently been speaking about research he’s conducted that shows how important the positive attitude is for top producers’ success. Sullivan has found that top producers have
- the ability to see failure as temporary
- a positive view of the future
- ways they use failure to gain confidence
- a strong belief that they are part of something good
- a positive way of explaining failure to themselves.
Using research that examined the salesforce of a large insurance firm, Sullivan found a strong correlation between success and how the company’s salespeople explain failure to themselves. The correlation to the ability to overcome objections was important in early years of a sales career; but over a long period of selling, how one handled failure was a more important factor.
We have observed that factor for years. When the most productive producers lose an opportunity, they shrug it off and are eager to start working on the next opportunity. Less productive salespeople, however, get demoralized by a lost opportunity and lose precious time before going after the next sale.
In my experience working with many entrepreneurial start-ups, I have observed that the leaders almost have to have a willing suspension of disbelief, strong rose-colored glasses to get them through the hurdles that determine success or failure.
The founder and president of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, said in an interview that if he had known how difficult the journey was going to be he would never have taken the first step.
In some people an optimistic attitude is a natural part of their DNA. For others it must be acquired. We have observed three things help salespeople and other business developers acquire confidence: 1) strong consultative selling skills; 2) strong sales processes that can be customized for each prospect; and 3) coaching to help them win specific deals that build the positive attitude that sends them off to go after the next one.
Whenever I have lost business opportunities, I’ve always asked myself whether the prospect was actually better off with the direction they chose or whether I failed to discover the true issues faced by that prospect. In either case I learn something that can be used in the future. I truly believe that if the prospect was better off with a different solution, then that was its own kind of success.
We have a client with a wide range of expertise within his salesforce, from those who have never sold to those that are top producers. Once the new sales process we developed with that client was in place, the least successful salesperson began having more and more success until he became the second most productive member of the team. He later shared with us that the strong sales process not only persuaded the prospect; it also persuaded him of the value he was creating for prospects. This led him to have more confidence. He now understands he was a major part of helping to create something good for the marketplace.
If you would like to discuss the factors that might be holding your sales team back, please call me directly at 847-447-0008 Ext. 1 or e-mail me at pkrone@productivestrategies.com. We will have a no-cost conversation that perhaps we will both benefit from.