I'm Accountable for Their Behavior?
You probably don't need me to preach to you about accountability in sales. I bet you already know what you need to do to make the calls, schedule the appointments, ask for referrals, etc. These are all "behaviors" that will help you close more sales. Unless you're new in business, youíre already doing these behaviors.
So, let's not talk about your behavior, let's talk about the prospects. If your prospects are going to invest in your product or service, then you need to help them discover that their existing situation is inadequate. After all, why would anyone invest in something if thereís nothing lacking with their current situation? Needing to help them discover their inadequacy makes sense, and itís sometimes hard to do because prospects tend to "externalize." They blame their performance on something else, and so do we, so where's our accountability for our prospect's behavior?
The Excuses
For instance: We might believe that "Prospects "Think-it-overî more in certain industries where "people don't make decisions quickly." We doubt it could be the result of anything we do or fail to do. It's just the "culture" of our industry.
Or we think: "Long selling cycles" are the result of people who are "laid back" and "easy-going." They're just not in a hurry,"You have to understand," we say, "people in the (Mid-west,South, or West Coast) don't move as quickly as the rest of the country." It'+
s not meÖitís the business culture there.î
Or ìPoor margins are just a fact in a highly competitive marketî. ìThere are so many competitors who are willing to ëgive it awayí to get the business that we have to cut our prices to be competitiveî, our excuse is: ìThe DevilÖI mean the competitionÖmade me do itî.
The list goes on. And we tend to attribute our challenges, problems, and frustrations to someone elseís behavior. Itís the prospects we call on, the competitors, or the collective behavior of the industry or region at fault. The trap that many salespeople fall into is externalizing and blaming everyone else.
To be as effective as we can be at selling we have to be objective and avoid making externalized excuses (which are often unrelated to the real problem) and face up to what would have prevented the problem from occurring in the first place.
The Real ReasonsFor example with the excuse: ìIn my industry, people donít make decisions quicklyÖthey need time to think-it-over.î We should know that if we do a good job at qualifying, we wouldnít be getting so many think-it-overs.
And the in the case of the ìhighly competitive marketî excuse, we should know that if we do a good job at helping the prospect discover our value, cutting price ceases to be as big an issue.
Certainly ìmarket forcesî, ìstiff competitionî and a regionís ìbusiness cultureî can all be factors in marketing products or services. And we may even want to allow our manager or others that depend on our performance to continue to believe that these factors are the greatest determinants. But if we want to perform at our best, we need to be honest enough with ourselves to accept that most of these excuses for weak performance are rationalization.
Get SystematicSo I wonít preach to you about holding yourself accountable in your prospecting behaviors, you already know you need to make the calls, schedule the appointments, and ask for the referrals. (But by the way, if you are struggling with any of these skills, I think I can help.) This particular lecture is about holding yourself accountable for t he prospectsí behavior to the degree that you can control it. You can control it by applying a systematic approach to selling and good questioning, listening and qualifying skills.
For information on how to take a systematic approach to selling go to: www.marrsales.com