When discussing commercial excellence, we overthink instructions, training, analysis, and metrics. I already wrote about it…the key to commercial excellence is clarity. What exactly do you want to achieve? The answer can change from one year to another. Therefore, there is no one correct answer. You can look for growth at all costs during three years, and after, you might want to look for profit optimization.
Once you have clarity, all you need is to coach your team. And please…
Socrates once said that wonder is the beginning of wisdom. Today, many articles and books are written about curiosity and developing a curiosity mindset. In selling, genuine curiosity is also valued as one of the critical competencies to have. Overall, everybody agrees that it is almost a life hack.
Then, why are we still talking about it since Socrates keep coming back to the same point where we fail to apply it in all fields of life? Why could we not make any progress in using our curiosity to improve?
In selling, we face two types of competition: internal (peer competition) and external (market competition). In both cases, we learn and practice competition as a war where one must lose for the other to win. In other words, a zero-sum game.
I always try to avoid zero-sum games and transform them into positive-sum games, meaning that both competing parties can be better off in the end. But how can this be possible when selling in a competitive environement?
There are different approaches to the role of a salesperson vis-a-vis their customers. Some claim that a salesperson should be the customer’s trusted advisor, helping solve their problem.
Meanwhile, another approach claims that the salesperson’s role is more of a decision-making coach who asks questions to understand the customer’s real needs better.
Let’s first look at the definitions to clarify the difference between an advisor and a coach…
The other day, an executive I coach, let’s call him Bill, came up with a problem he faced with a business partner in Morocco.
Recently, the Moroccan partner explained that he wants to expand his business to other products that do not exist in Bill’s product range. He was investigating opportunities with one of Bill’s competitors with those products in their range.
According to Bill, this was a problem because he was afraid that his competitor would use this opportunity to “steal” his business partner…
Let me put it straight; I do not believe in motivation. I even take it further and claim that any motivational speaker or motivational book is a product of great marketing. Their impact never lasts. For me, it is straightforward… You either want to do something or don’t. When you want to do it, you will do it; when you do not want to do it, you will not.
When people say they lost motivation, I understand they no longer want to do it. However, many claims to lack motivation for what they want to do. When coaching, I realized one thing about those people. What they are missing is not motivation; it is clarity.
sometimes (indeed, most of the time), you do not need big visions, revolutionary ideas or disruptive technologies to succeed. Working on your offering, price positioning, go-to-market, conversion rates, commercial efficiency etc, might sound too overwhelming. And I can tell you that most of the ancient merchants used those approaches even before they were called like this. They used those methods simply to survive. For them, no other way was possible….
I believe the biggest problem with learning is not about how to learn. It is about making it last. And it goes through three stages:
-learning the knowledge
-learning how to implement
-learning how to become
Any learning experience (training, workshop, course, etc.) reaches its limitations because we often do not go to the third stage, which is the most challenging part…
In the previous post (Commercial Excellence simplified), I took your attention to the foundation of commercial excellence, selectivity.
Of course, in today’s complex business environment, “selectivity” requires a detailed breakdown. The four commercial excellence pillars are strategy, Performance, Operations, and Technology. (SPOT)
Commercial excellence is a fancy vague term. It sounds like only big multinationals can afford to work on commercial excellence. Indeed its foundations lie in the basics of commerce. Over the centuries, merchants have primarily used the principles of commercial excellence to survive in the business….
Learning for Performance