Growth Dynamics Get Down

Jody was driving away from her newly won account with that smirky smile of satisfaction on her face. She had walked her way through the process from the referral stage, onto discovery and fact finding, then qualification with a commitment to act one way or another, and finally the agreement to do business together.

She knew her self-satisfaction was a result of the actions she took only a few short weeks ago, after several nightmare appointments almost sent her to rock bottom. During those calls, she had been nervous about her lack of preparation and from not knowing where she was in her own sales cycle. All that should have been done did not get done because she kept telling herself she was "too busy" to spend the needed time on any one aspect of her business.

Ellen felt blah, like the world’s color had vanished and everything was stuck between black and white in some all gray tones of reality. After 12 long weeks of working from home and trying to force herself to keep fighting the fight, Ellen’s commitment sagged to its lowest point ever. The constant barrage of virtual meetings and remote access sales calls created a sense that the sales world no longer felt like the same place she was so excited about three long months ago. Was this it? Was post pandemic selling how people were actually going to be doing business? Was Ellen’s personal touch and ability to connect with her customers going to be limited to email, voice mail and ZOOM interactions? To Ellen it all looked like the world had turned Battleship Gray faster than she could believe, and no, she did not like that color at all.

Jerry never felt compelled to trust or rely on technology. In his opinion nothing beats getting out there and looking someone in the eye or at least picking up the phone and chatting live with a prospect or a customer. No one ever refused to do business with Jerry, and in many of his customers’ locations he had free rein to essentially come and go as he pleased. No way email could be that important as long as Jerry could walk in, pull up a chair and talk about personal “stuff” before staring his pitch. Jerry thought email and all this new “webinar” and virtual selling stuff was just more trouble than it was worth and never going to be as important as that face to face visit. Jerry stuck to his guns and even managed to get one of the inside team to transcribe his emails, so he was not forced to adopt that new-fangled irritation into his sales game. And then Covid-19 arrived, and Jerry was lost.

Erin looked at her monthly sales report and did not like what she saw. Despite working harder than she had all year, the numbers told Erin that she could forget about getting her quarterly bonus. It seemed like each quarter turned out the same; one month that Erin thought would carry her to a bonus and two months that fell short. The pattern was frustrating for Erin as she tried to figure a way to break into the top performer group in her office. It seemed like all the wins she posted in the one good month stole the time she needed to prospect for the other two months. Besides, how could anyone be expected to stop the customer service fire drills that popped up all the time? Erin was beginning to feel trapped.