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…
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….
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….
During my daily discussions with salespeople around the world, we have been talking about the challenges they have been facing due to global supply chain issues, which means that they need to sell under extraordinary conditions regarding the delivery lead times, which are extremely long compared to pre-Covid period.
In the last twelve months, I observed two main reactions. The first one is…
A sales meeting is almost like a date. And your attitude is clearly defined by your expectation of the outcome. If you would like to build a long-term relationship, you would be more interested in the other party. And you would be genuinely curious about their lives. If you are looking for a short-term benefit (a one-night stand or one-off sales transaction), you would be more talking about yourself because you would like to cut to the chase.
Ironically, most sales trainings teach salespeople how to present themselves and talk about their companies and their products. Even in line with the trend of “problem-solving,”…
From my point of view, we do not even need to provide sales training at all. On top of a clear training on the offering, it is enough to create a constant and unfiltered feedback mechanism….
Focusing on efficiency can result in doing the wrong thing most efficiently. But, how can salespeople know if they are doing the right thing?
Learning for Performance