FranklinCovey-The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Sales Leaders

HABIT 1: BE PROACTIVE

Productivity is much more than ‘taking initiative’

PRACTICE DOESN’T MAKE PERFECT

phrases or descriptions. This, again, allows the seller to move too quickly to their solution. The disadvantage of all three of these approaches is that we fail to understand what challenges our prospects really face in enough detail. We can often quickly get into dialogue and out of alignment at the very first client interaction. Proactive sellers are aware that they have a choice when responding to requests from prospects or clients. Rather than tell, accept, or guess, they possess the skills and the emotional intelligence

that meets their needs, the chances are that they won’t buy from us, or won’t buy from us again. Similarly, if we don’t get a solution that meets our needs, we’ll also suffer (often financially if we surrender during the process). We need to have conscious awareness right at the beginning of the sales process or pursuit and work on how we can collaborate to discover the solution that exactly meets their needs. There are a number of useful skills required here, but I want to stay focused on the principle of proactivity. Whenever a client or prospect invites us in and says the magic words... “We’re having a problem with_______________, Tell us what you have in this space?” There are three default behaviours I see regularly from reactive sellers: They tell. This means that they recite a monologue of their recent learnings on the features and functions of their product or solution. Perhaps a diatribe on their company, their people, their geographic reach – or a host of other facts about THEM i.e. the seller. They accept. Rather than seek to understand at a deeper level, the seller accepts that ‘the client has a problem’. Rather than becoming really curious and probing deeper, the seller resorts to ‘broadcast mode’ and again focuses on their solution and the rest of the rehearsed diatribe. They guess. What I mean here is that the seller assumes that they both have the same understanding of certain words,

People care enough about the problem to want a solution

Perfect Practice Makes Perfect. It all goes back to the stimulus response model and the principle of proactivity, which says that regardless of where you find yourself, you can choose your response and you can elevate your performance by choice. For example, let’s say there’s a salesperson who is intimidated and “shuts down” whenever a certain “title” joins a meeting. What’s on the line is an important opportunity, and when that person feels the pressure, he or she goes silent. Sometimes they over-react and oversell. Or they may agree to do more for the customer than they should for the price, and margins evaporate. However, simply because that’s how someone has always responded doesn’t mean that’s how they have to respond in the future. As a leader you can help them examine their reactions and start choosing different responses. And you can practice those responses with them so that when that situation comes up in a customer meeting, it’s not the first time the salesperson has said the words they need to say. They’ve practiced them, perfectly. That’s how proactivity can put a sales organization on a different trajectory.

We can measure the extent or cost of the problem

The cost of the solution is materially less than the cost of the problem There is a problem There is only one problem We have a solution There is only one solution ...and so on.

to proactively explore the prospect’s challenges and

Take 2-3 minutes and you’ll easily create a list of 20 assumptions relating to that one simple phrase. Proactive sellers have the ability to stay ‘off the solution’ until they have sufficiently explored the problems to be solved and/or the results or business outcomes the client desires. They organise their dialogue with carefully thought through questions aimed at getting real and meaningful answers to critical assumptions, and they do it in a way that creates confidence and is efficient and conversational (see Habit 5). In summary, solutions must solve something. Proactive sellers understand that value is only derived when a problem that the prospect or client cares about is solved, or when a highly-valued (by the client) business outcome is realised. This can only be achieved with a proactive approach to exploring needs, rather than a reactive ‘prescription’ of a service or product.

ensure they understand them in detail before they even consider presenting a solution. Proactive sellers understand that solutions have no inherent value. Let me say it louder... Solutions have no inherent value! Let’s look at this in two ways. Firstly ‘the solution’ and then what we mean by ‘value’. A number of our clients spend millions on developing solutions. Often, solution or product ‘owners’ show up in our training sessions and workshops and I watch them wince when I say that solutions have no inherent value. What I am trying to convey with this proclamation is that proactive sellers realise that solutions derive value (and let’s not forget that value is in the eye of the beholder) only from the problems they solve or the business outcomes they provide. Reactive sellers often immediately say something like, “The solution to the problem is...” Just think about this phrase for a few minutes and think about all of the assumptions that this simple phrase could contain. Here are a few for starters:

MOVE OFF THE SOLUTION I once heard one of my

FranklinCovey colleagues say, “Consultants or sellers deal in foregone solutions.” Meaning they think everyone needs what we have, and that our solution can be universally applied to a multitude of problems.

If the client perceives that they’re not getting a solution

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