THE 6TH G OF TACTICAL SALES DECISION MAKING

In my previous article, I had introduced the 5Gs of Tactical Sales Decision Making : Grit, Grip, Guts, Gut and God.

These help us Salespeople in whether and how to move to the next sales cycle stage : irrespective of which Sales Model we follow- SPIN, MEDDIIC, SPIN, Value Selling, Command of the Sale &Command of the Message and many others. Applied judiciously and without bias, these will optimise our time and bring about more positive outcomes and improve probability of success.

WHY THE 6TH G ?

Going by the telecom industry, while the world is conducting 5G trials and soft launches, there are a few countries that are already thinking half or a decade ahead in terms of 6G based on HEMT technology. As always, the idea is to increase speed many-fold, miniaturise and improve cost, time to deploy and efficiency.

Similarly, I will here introduce the 6th G of Tactical Sales Decision Making which has been deployed by all of us. Sadly we have implemented this intermittently; forcefully and sometimes in the race for quick results, transactional and management pressure, we overlook this. The 6th G will further aid the 5G Tactical Sales Decision Making Framework in being even more efficient, improve probability, give us decision points, and augment our Gut (the 4th G) to move forward, pause or step back.

THE PAST IS THE KEY

Before I introduce the 6th G, let us all go back in time and analyse our major wins over the years. We of course, did tick all the aspects in the Structured Sales Cycle : Identified Pain, Mapped Key Decision Makers- Influencers, Champions, Economic Buyer, Understood the Decision Taking Criteria and so on and so forth.

Well, another key factor that would be common in both B2B and B2C deals (Where B2C is aggregated to a B2B model through large partnerships and alliances), is our Chord / Personal equation with the Champion, Influencer or Economic Buyer.

So, what is different, haven’t all our Sales Trainers taught us to diligently map the Champions, Influencers and Economic Buyers? Well they have, and our competitors have also been doing the same. What we consciously or subconsciously did and did better than others was the 6th G- Getting Across to these customer groups

THE 6TH G- GET ACROSS

When we took a trip down our memory lane, we realised we used to have so many diverse and beautiful conversations with our Champions and Influencers that the business discussions actually seemed like “by-products” We spoke about a plethora of topics ranging from personal, professional, political, sports, cultural, entertainment to common friends, relatives, hobbies and so much more. For some of them, we even knew their personal and professional anniversaries and other important dates.

Many of these connections still stay with us even though most of us have moved on to other assignments. Although we may not be in touch on a day to day basis, the Chord that we built gets re-ignited very quickly due to the few lasting memories we all have.

It is also important to remember that these Customer and Partner folks with whom we have got-across have always given us the correct information : good or bad and their unbiased assessment of the situation. This 6th G hence, to refresh our memory of my previous article augments the Grip (The 2nd G) and Gut (The 4th G)

HOW TO INVOKE THE 6TH G?

Firstly, we must inculcate this as a habit and make this a part of our unconscious self. In the pre or early Internet Days, fostering personal equations and getting across to new people was so much difficult and involved so much of in-person meeting, leveraging common connects, gyms, clubs, and other traditionally established ways.

In this modern era, we have so much of information at our fingertips and the key is Smart Research through Professional and Personal Social Media, Professional Memberships and so many other avenues. If we do this as a habit and diligently, we are pleasantly surprised to find out that we :

1.      Have common childhood friends and have seen each other 3 decades ago

2.      Cried when Zinedine Zidane was ejected from World Cup 2006

3.      Lost tons of weight through the Atkins diet

4.      Share common likes and dislikes of “Coding in School”

5.      Were subjected to similar gruelling interviews at an E-commerce giant

6.      Are desperately trying to reduce screen time of our children

7.      Had very different experiences of a Leadership Training we both went through

8.      Got stuck at the Hong Kong Airport due to cyclone shut down

9.      Were shocked at the number of non-functional rides at Disneyland

The list is endless...

The trick is to strike a chord or find some common subjects that we both are passionate about- people, topics, interests, hobbies, children, languages, travels, break the ice and Get Across.

A TIP TO START

While the Pandemic brings about many strong emotions and polarising views, we all do agree that Covid19 and the resultant reaction has affected all of us as human beings cutting across profession, function, and demographics. Never have all of us professionals been so uniformly united with the same concerns, challenges, hopes, empathy, and strategies.

With most of us sitting at home for a good part of the year, I have personally observed that even introverts now have become more active (albeit virtually) and are connecting and sharing views. WFH, Work Life Balance, Social Media have connected all of us even more and we realise we are all human beings with families trying to work for the betterment of us and those around us.

We can always start with the Views as well as Professional & Personal Impact of the Pandemic to Involve the 6th G and Get Across.