Growth Dynamics Get Down

Symptoms:

Marcy, her manager and their product expert just finished a conference call with a hot prospect, and after the last caller signed off, she felt like the last hour had just wasted a month's worth of effort in getting it set up. They had all agreed to dial in, so why was there so little interest, so few questions and no action items at the end of the call? Why was there so little interaction between her team and the audience? Granted, she didn't have too much to say on the call, but the purpose was to show off their company and their offerings. Or was it? Now, looking back, she wasn't so sure.

As the calendar hits mid-June and I can hear the kids in the neighborhood celebrate the last day of the school year I ponder what they learned about life as well as their scholastic advancement. Those ideas provoke thoughts about what salespeople learn from one year to the next, or are they just repeating their earliest days in sales over and over, not really growing from the experiences along the way. So often when I am working with a sales team someone will complain about a prospect that will not return a call or a customer that expects to buy everything at the lowest possible price. Inevitably someone says that is just the way sales is and that complaining never makes it different. In other words, just live with it because that stuff just goes with the territory.

Today we are all facing a challenge that two weeks ago seemed as likely as pigs flying. Yet, here we are facing a sales challenge you won’t find talked about in any sales training manuals or motivational seminars. Essentially, the world has shut down for almost everyone, and none of us can truly say, with any certainty, when it will reopen. With that reality staring us in the face I thought I’d take some time this evening and make some suggestions about how to survive the challenges in front of all salespeople. Below you will find a few ideas for each of the three points of our MAP to Success: Mindset, Activity and Process.

Monday Morning Manager

You've asked and we've listened. We are pleased to announce we are now offering podcasts of Growth Dynamics training! 

Don’t Be That Guy.

My work with my clients is constantly connecting me to their upstream and downstream market partners both directly and indirectly. As I review and replay the conversations I have with the people I support and coach, one idea keeps popping up; the idea of curiosity. Are we all curious enough to be as effective as we can and should be in our business and sales processes?

Too many salespeople run their sales model the same way they get cash from an ATM machine; they don’t really know how much money they have until they go punch in their PIN and see if there is anything in the account. In other words, many don’t even look at their account until they need some cash, and too often they are shocked by how low their balance is. You can’t run your sales machine the same way.

The last line from Copier Colin Part 1 read, “We bought a copier.”

The Growth Dynamics executive team (both of us) just sat down to meet with a fresh-faced, recent college grad selling printers and copiers scrambling through his third week on the job. Geez, to be so young and full of optimism, Copier Colin had a smile on his face and he tried to manage the call and get us to be as excited about office equipment as he is. His manager was with him today, and frankly, she did a good job making sure no one got hurt in the exchange.