This week, as I wrote this piece, protestors have taken to the streets in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Not too far from where I live in Chicago, rioting and looting broke out.
This post is about bringing others along on the journey of the work you are doing. I am aware that we live in a world and a time when many are being left behind, oppressed even, and don’t have access to the opportunities and freedoms many of us enjoy.
Poverty, oppression, systematic injustice and racial discrimination is a complex issue. I only understand a small fraction of it, maybe very little. If I’m honest, I feel like it’s so big, and there is nothing I can do to make it better that I give up thinking about it.
But then I am reminded of the brothers I have come to know who have been caught up in an unjust system. And a band of them who have walked together with me through my trials inspires me to keep working to make things better.
So as we work together to make our sales process work better and grow our companies lets try to improve the opportunities for all people in society.
Key Insights In The Sales Process
The sales process is a cycle that doesn’t end at the close of the sale. It doesn’t end once the product is delivered, even if there is some sort of service component.
The work goes on even after we get paid, and the contract is over. The goal of sales is to help the customer become something new. Becoming the person that they want to be. In B2B sales, we help be successful in the role their company pays them to accomplish.
During the sales process, we are helping the customer define who they want to become. The customer value driver is a clear insight into how our company helps them get there. In the sales process, it is essential to establish ourselves as the best option or the only option to help them get there.
Bring These Insights To Others
The sales process is helping the customer define what it is that they want to become. When we are clear on how we provide value for a customer in this situation, this insight becomes the customer value driver. Bring bringing these insights to others, inviting them on the journey, and it is the best way to expand our reach.
Clarifying the ways you can help people and collecting these stories is the easiest way to communicate the value you provide to people unfamiliar with your work. Even those familiar with your work may figure out a new way of solving one of their problems.
If we have been able to define the problem for them, if it is a problem that they didn’t know that they had, this puts us in a position to help them with even more significant or more advanced issues. If our competitors are not the ones bringing the solutions, do they really know what they are doing?
Communicating the value you provide is the best way to differentiate.
Trying to Be All Things To All People
When we are doing important work and providing value to customers, it is only natural to want to do it for more and more people.
The problem is trying to be all things to all people in the field that we serve. This is the opposite of differentiating yourself. This noise leads to confusion for your customers and yourself.
For the salesperson, this only leads to overwhelm. It is a given that only a percentage of prospects will drive ongoing business. But when you are spread too thin, you are distracted from the people that you can do a fantastic job.
Who wants to subject themselves to more rejection, unnecessary rejection?
What’s more, I have seen an increase in the number of projects that don’t end in order at all. Either the program gets canceled, or the project gets cut because they couldn’t justify the return on the investment. This is when the customer doesn’t order from anyone, even the competition.
It is a vast waste of capacity to spend time on opportunities that will never get anywhere.
Develop A Filter
When we are clear on the value we provide, and why we are best suited for certain situations, we can filter out the ones that don’t belong.
It is about knowing what’s in your wheelhouse. You recognize when that pitch is coming, and you hard a better chance at knocking it out of the park. The alternative is swinging at all the junk that comes along.
In the sales process, you are going after everything is filling your funnel with fluff. Being overactive, going after as many as possible, and just letting the probabilities fall out is grossly inefficient.
When we get caught up in this, it keeps us from doing a fantastic job for the people we are best suited to help. It gets in the way of us doing the vital work we were put here to do.
And we end up diluting our brand.
Brand Recognition
A brand is a composite of the stories people tell themselves about your company. The clear narrative of how you help people is why you are valuable in the world.
Often in Industrial Sales, where out materials go into large scale equipment, it is hard to see the connection. But you have to look for it. You have to clarify it.
Or maybe the things your company makes and sell goes into a large scale processing plant. You can connect the impact you make to the people you work with at the client. What does success look like for them? How are you helping make that happen? It is critical to see how the work you do helps your clients fulfill their mission and achieve their vision.
The story of how you have helped somebody achieve their mission. What it is about your company that has a unique advantage.
Know what it is that your company is about and be able to communicate that clearly. This is how you stand out and differentiate yourself.
It helps is integral in knowing who you are, so that when you come across others, you know if they are a candidate for someone that you can help. It helps you to recognize who you can help and filter out those that are not going to help your cause.
What are the things that other people say about you? When people talk about your work, what do they mean?
Do you know that you can feed them the words you hope they would say?
This reminds me of a passage in the Gospels, where Jesus asks his disciples what people were saying about him.
Who Do You Say I Am?
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Phillippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
Matthew 16:13-20
What is going on here? Why is the all-knowing God asking his disciples what others are saying about him? Why would he have to do that?
It reminds me of a time I was in a leadership development group. We ran a process where others give you feedback about how they see you. It was data, good and bad, about how you show up in the world.
It was with a small group of trusted friends, but still, it was one of the most vulnerable experiences of my life. But the insights were tremendous.
There is a difference between who you think you are and who others see you as. The difference is valuable information. In the delta, there is gold!
It helps you understand yourself accurately and give you things you can work on or change or good things that you can fully own.
Clarity of Calling
In the passage, it is impressive how Jesus was misrecognized. Jeremiah was a profit that sits crying in a cave writing the book of Lamentations as he watched Jereseulum be ransacked. Jesus did go on to weep over Jerusalem as he longed to gather them as a hen gathers her chicks. That would make Jesus the Greater Jeremiah.
Peter’s ability to see Christ came from above. It was a reality that was revealed to him. He was able to see clearly who God is and what his calling on earth would be.
Peter was given the calling to be the foundation that God builds the Church. He is also given the power and agency to change spiritual realities on earth, and this will have an impact on heaven. This is not just changing the world, and this is changing things for eternity. That is some responsibility!
Be clear on your calling. Tell the story of the cause you care about, day in and day out. That is when you will be empowered from above to bring it about.
To do otherwise is to be caught up in unimportant work that keeps you from the critical work.