I Like It When You're Skeptical

“You’re not wrong…”

I got excited when I heard her say this. Even though it came with a skeptical eyebrow and half a smile, I knew I had my prospect exactly where I wanted her…

Thinking.

Rethink The Way You Sell has been my trademark for years now. I will occasionally kid myself that nobody wants to think anymore and they just want to follow a set of “the right” instructions. But every once in a while, I find myself in front of a group that wants to engage. They want to level up their performance in a sustainable way. 

They don’t want to be convinced to try something new; they want to build their methods and playbooks in a way they can believe in. 

That’s when I light up. That’s when I know I’m making an impact.

You don’t have to believe I’m right. You just need to concede that what I’m saying isn’t wrong. That’s enough for us to have a productive discussion, and we can explore what’s right for you.

I’m writing about this because I think it’s something that’s sorely missing in the sales improvement space. There are plenty of experts out there who provide high-quality content and deliver it in a compelling manner. A lot of their stuff works, but it’s delivered to the audience without them understanding why it works.

The templates get used, and good results normally follow, but they’re short-lived, and not everybody on the team can use them well. At least 30-40% of the team will still flounder because they can’t grasp the nuance. They aren’t bad salespeople; they just don’t get it and get frustrated again. Not only does their performance start to suffer again, but so do morale and culture.

Teaching someone a few sales tactics is not the same thing as teaching them how to sell.

Something completely different happens when I roll up my sleeves and get to work with a team. I challenge them to think. I lay out a concept that scares them a little (like the fact that they know they need to reach out to prospects longer and more often, but they’re afraid to). Then we work through how to solve that problem.

It looks different for every team. Hell, it often looks different for people in the same room, but it works well for the teams that do the work and for the long term.

When they take an active role in doing the work, they’ve got sweat equity in it. They’ve got every reason to believe in it because it checks all the boxes of the problems they know they need to solve.

They don’t cross their fingers and hope that it will work because someone else told them it should. They’ve used every bit of their experience to formulate and scrutinize these methods, and they can’t wait to put them into play.

Even more importantly, when the selling environment changes, they’ve already got the frameworks and sales know-how to modify their techniques to fit the situation. 

When you know how to sell, making the switch to virtual isn’t a big deal. How many of your younger reps know well enough to make the switch back to in-person situations?

The best part of all of this is seeing the metaphorical lightbulbs going on above all the nodding heads in the rooms I work in. The energy lift is palpable. 

And to think I want it all to start with a healthy dose of skepticism…

When was the last time you had your prospect in a conversation where there was a healthy amount of skepticism? Do you have them thinking, or are they certain that you're wrong about how to help them?

At the end of the day, you need to decide what you want for your team. Do you want a couple of tips that will improve things in the short term, or do you want to build on the strengths of your organization in such a way that your team is prepared for the long haul?

I don’t need to remind you that you’ll have a number to hit next quarter too.