The Sales Experiment

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Starting New Habits by Creating Deadlines

I sat down with a colleague today and worked on setting up a personal sales and marketing plan for the next few months.

He had engaged me to assist him in creating a plan that he could implement to kick his sales efforts up a notch.

I’m not technically a sales trainer, but consuming content and attempting to implement said content has helped me to recognize patterns in me and in others.

I see that while many of us want change, we fail to create deadlines to reinforce and establish new habits.

Therefore, when I sat down with my colleague, I attempted to focus on developing a clear system.

The Importance of Committing to New Habits

My suggestion was to be systematic and habit-focused:

  1. Decide on an ideal client profile.
  2. Create a list of at least 100 potential prospects that fit said profile.
  3. Commit to weekly prospecting appointments with self that are every bit as important to commit to as client appointments. Be violently committed to that time.
  4. Use that time in a systematic way: make calls, intentionally research client organizations, write content.
  5. Make note of ALL questions that current clients and prospects ask and have that running list handy.
  6. Use those questions to create consistent emails, blog posts, mailers.
  7. Reach out to that list of 100 as close to a monthly basis as possible as the relationships open up.

And I suggested that he commit to having the list of 100 list in a week and to have the first email scheduled to go out on a specific day, even if only one person is on his list on that day.

We settled on a specific date to send out that initial email, but I felt some hesitation. No list yet. Who is he going to email?

I said that it doesn’t matter. Put a couple current clients on your list and send something out.

Give yourself a deadline. Go ahead and write the email for that matter. Why not?

Change Is Simply The Accumulation of New Habits

This whole program will require developing new habits. The habit to schedule a weekly appointment or two solely dedicated to prospecting. The habit to make note of common questions for content fodder. The habit of sending regular emails out. The habit of taking time to map out potential clients’ organizations and finding connections.

All of these habits require intentionality. They require doing more than just popping on LinkedIn to send a connection request when the idea hits. They require more than just allowing client call-ins to determine who goes into the funnel.

To be better than average requires quality habits.

[Tweet “Quality habits don’t happen by accident. Crappy, useless habits happen by accident.”]

Quality habits happen by creating deadlines, taking a bit of time to plan, and scheduling them in the calendar. There really is no other way to build a new habit.

It’s consistent, daily action.

I hope that my colleague (and I, for that matter) will find some traction. I hope that there’ll be enough reward from forging ahead that the new habits will be reinforced.

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Recent Reading and Listening

Social Media Marketing Happy Hour 163: Fight Your Border Bullies 

Dawn Marrs Ortiz and Traci Reuter are two of my new podcast best friends. I love short podcasts with big nuggets of info and experience-gained knowledge. This particular podcast discussed the idea of ‘border bullies’ – those folks who stand around the edge of your safe life and encourage you strongly NOT to push the envelope and slay your dragons and forge new territory and pursue passions (and all the other metaphors that indicate moving outside of your comfort zone).

3 Questions That Matter Most This Year – Jeb Blount, Sales Gravy Podcast

Jeb’s is another wonderfully short, power-packed podcast. This episode encourages you to answer these questions this year:

  1. What do you want?
  2. How do you plan to get it?
  3. How bad do you want it?

It’s stuff you know, but more than likely you need to listen to it again. I, for one, have learned that it matters not how much I know. It matters what I do with what I know. As soon as ‘I’ve heard that before’ comes out of my mouth, the very next statement better be, ‘And I did something about it.’

Pinterest Smart Feed Is It Bad for Business? – Oh So Pinteresting Podcast with Cynthia Sanchez

I love Pinterest. I’m not all that consistent with it, but thanks to Ms. Sanchez, I’m getting better and better at it. I highly recommend her podcast and other content. She’s the go-to girl on the topic (in my humble opinion).

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Influence through Appreciation

Appreciation and Leadership

One of the quickest ways to connect with someone is to appreciate him.

Appreciate where he is coming from. Sincerely appreciate her perspective. Acknowledge and appreciate his contribution.

From the most sensitive personality to the most high-charging go-getter, sincere appreciation is… appreciated.

By pinpointing where someone has made an impact, that person will be naturally encouraged to continue to make the same impact and perhaps make the impact more deeply.

We’ve all had the experience of being thanked or acknowledged for what we do and, as a result, focus additional effort on doing that thing better or more consistently.

Quality leaders get it. Leaders who consistently and verbally acknowledge solid work and pinpoint someone’s most effective contributions get more of those contributions.

It happens at work, at home, in volunteer settings.

Appreciation and Sales

Are sales and marketing efforts any different? Can we influence people who we hope to serve through our product or service via sincere appreciation (we won’t get into hair-splitting about sincere vs. insincere appreciation – we all know the difference)?

In sales, will my appreciation of a prospect’s contribution result in a greater likelihood of closing a deal?

On the surface, honestly, perhaps not. If we simply tell our potential client that he has done a bang-up job as a leader in his organization, this might smack of flattery at worse or basic rapport-building at best.

But dig into the definition of ‘appreciation’:

Understanding and fully recognizing all the implications or a certain situation.

Here we find something that can be very useful on a sales and marketing level: If we fully understand and appreciate the implications of a potential client’s decision to work with us and buy our product or service vs. using a competitors, then how more complete will our solutions and our sales process be?

When we appreciate our key contact’s internal corporate relationships, the economics of their decisions, and their current vendor relationships, we should do a better job at building out proposals that make change both attractive and easier for our prospect. We’ll also be more thorough in our sales process in order to gain the correct commitments to move the relationship forward.

When we appreciate more deeply our client’s situation, we move from being enamored of our benefits and features to being willing to walk a mile in our prospect’s shoes, to go to bed considering what keeps our prospect up at night.

When we start taking on our prospects’ concerns, we gain insight that goes beyond our own offering.

We can influence through appreciating someone’s contribution. We can bring change by appreciating someone’s circumstances.

[Tweet “We can influence through appreciating someone’s contribution. We can bring change by appreciating someone’s circumstances.”]

Consider how, today, you can acknowledge and appreciate a colleague’s contribution. And consider also how you can acknowledge and appreciate a potential client’s situation.

What can you do to encourage both to make the improvements that you see is possible? 

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Today’s reading of How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie influenced this post.

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Do Not Pass the Buck

I wanted to tell a story about how I did not pass the buck today. Given the nature of my business, it’s hard to figure out what wise disclosure on a blog might be, so we’ll just say that I passed the test and didn’t pass the buck.

It would have been easy to brush this situation under the rug. And I could have allowed someone else to unknowingly bear the brunt of the blame, but I didn’t.

I’m not saying this to brag and show off about how full of character I am. We all have strengths in our character. We all have weaknesses. Thankfully, at work, I’ve worked hard at being willing to take responsibility when I’ve fouled up. And it’s ever so tempting to pass the buck, to shew the blame on down the line.

There are a billion ways to pass the buck.

  • We can blame colleagues
  • We can blame our busy-ness
  • We can blame clients
  • We can blame the computer system or the ridiculous barrage of emails in my inbox.
  • We can blame the systems or the processes
  • We can always blame management. They’re always fouling up, no?

One thing I’ve had to put my foot down about at work is this: I’d rather be fired after admitting to having made a bad decision or screwed up on a task than develop the reputation for never taking responsibility.

This position on taking responsibility was affirmed today when I listened to Michael Hyatt’s podcast: Why Accountability is Vital for Leaders. I’ve heard the good Mr. Hyatt mention the importance of leaders taking responsibility many times.

Perfection isn’t possible, so why pretend like we never screw up?

If we fess up, then we’re teachable. If we’re teachable and hardworking, then we’ll improve or we’ll figure out we simply need to move on.

Taking responsibility – being accountable – for our performance helps a quality leader or manager uncover our weaknesses (even if we’re our own manager or leader). If we constantly gloss over our screw-ups, then we won’t give opportunity for teachable moments and growth.

Taking responsibility is vital not only to being a leader, but for growing.

I recently lost an opportunity to a competitor. It would have been easy to blame the situation and circumstances, circumstances that were beyond my control. My contact passed the decision regarding my potential proposal to a colleague. The colleague had a friend who offered the same services I do. The colleague’s friend got the business.

I could blame them for not giving me a fair shake, but that wouldn’t teach me a dang thing.

The better approach is to ask the right questions.

  • What could I have done differently?
  • Did I clarify well enough who the decision-makers were?
  • Did I trust my relationship with my main point of contact too much?
  • Did I provide enough value in my initial appointments?

Passing the buck shields us from having to stare at ourselves in the mirror and face our imperfections.

Taking responsibility? That sucks for a few moments, but it creates opportunities for growth and learning.

Where you do you tend to pass the buck? Where do you struggle with taking responsibility?

(Leave a response in the comments)

Until tomorrow…

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Reading and Listening (in addition to the Hyatt podcast mentioned above)

Grow Your Social Media Following with These 10 Different Kinds of Posts – This is Your Life (Podcast) with Michael Hyatt & Michele Cushatt

My Top Ten Favorite Books of All Time – This is Your Life (Podcast) with Michael Hyatt & Michele Cushatt

See You at the Top – Zig Ziglar

Links to Amazon.com are affiliate links. In other words, if you click and buy, then I get a commission. This is very much appreciated if you find any value in this blog. 

 

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