I love the clients that we work with. As we are out seeking them, we often say that we work best with those who “are inspired yet dissatisfied with the status-quo and don’t mind getting outside the edges of their comfort zones to affect the change that they desire.”
We are blessed to be able to work with these types of individuals and organizations on a daily basis!
Learning from failure
Recently, I had one of our inspired clients approach us to see if I would come in for a “sharpen the saw” session.
They told me that they simply got ‘out sold’ on a deal and they wanted to debrief, and role play through every step along the way to see where they could improve and not get ‘out sold’ again. So, we sat down and did just that. We reviewed from the very beginning of how they came across the opportunity, the initial calls to the first face to face meeting. They were very prepared and pulled out their pre-call plan sheets outlining the ‘cast of characters’, their pains, DISC styles and their individual role in the decision-making process.
I was very pleased to see the level of preparedness the sales pro had in the process. We discussed the preparation and the time/interactions involved then reviewed the fulfillment (presentation) step of the process where I played the decision maker as we role-played this out. We role played for a good 45 minutes. In the end I took quite a few notes and was able to provide 3rd-party feedback that everyone in the room stated was extremely valuable. These experiences are often enlightening to everyone involved (including myself) as we explore different ways of moving through the sales process and discuss what may have been missed/overlooked.
What are you doing to “sharpen the saw” with your team? My client above practices regularly.
They role-play in their weekly team meetings and are standouts in our weekly Sandler training sessions. They have moved the needle as a company and culturally over their years as a client. They also realize that sometimes you get out sold and that is an opportunity in itself to learn and grow instead of complaining about how the prospect got it wrong or why they were just 'stupid' in how they came to their decision.
It’s easy in the day to day to get into comfort zones and still feel good about how you are moving forward. That is why they have a trainer and a coach that they leverage to keep them sharp, one that is focused not only on providing process and tactics but is also focused on helping them achieve and exceed the goals that they have set for themselves as individuals, a team and as a company.
Why do we accept that sports teams need coaches but business teams don't?
There's a dark flip-side to this as well.
In seeking the inspired, motivated clients that I outlined above we come across many prospects (most actually) that tell us that they "don't need it" and that they "hire great people so that they can go figure it out." Recently (as in just a couple days ago) I had a prospect tell me that when the idea of training was presented to the sales staff, they were suddenly "too busy" to dedicate 90 minutes per week to developing their skills. (I was invited in because the owner was questioning whether his sales guys were actually working full days or not.)
"Sharpening the Saw" is not a one-and-done type of thing. It's the continuous work on the little things that make us great. Sports analogies have been used to death in this context, but think about how many 3-5 foot puts Tiger has practiced over the years, or how many 15' jump shots Michael Jordan or Lebron has taken in their careers?
They do this so that in the most critical moments, what we view as extremely difficult things to do are simply muscle memory to them.
Do you have this type of muscle memory confidence in yourself or your team in the moment?
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