How to Tailor, Teach and Take Control
I came into sales by necessity, not by trade. You see, I'm an introvert and my shyness was not very useful in a sales environment. Over the years I have had to work hard on overcoming my timidity. Throughout that period I read, watched, and learned a lot about the trade. Applying those lessons has been a challenge, but as I continue to improve myself, I have come to understand that practice does not make perfect, it's perfecting the practice that really counts.
This year has been one of learning and applying. Throughout the last 10 months, I have read more sales books than I had planned to consume. As I dug into classic texts like "To Sell is Human" by Daniel Pink and "Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss, I have become enamored by the concept of the sale. And, I have come to believe that selling is good, selling belongs, and selling is, indeed, human.
As I continue the journey of learning, one of the most interesting books I came across was "The Challenger Customer". Written by already-established authors Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, writers of the widely successful title "The Challenger Sale", this book led me to improve my selling skills, but, most importantly, it revealed how to unlock the potential of people inside client's organizations, to sell successfully in the 21st century.
I have been able to merge the lessons learned in sales with my vision of becoming a trusted advisor. Navigating that terrain quickly opened my eyes to what was possible once the relationship with my clients was fortified. Past the relationship-building phase, growth is what I and every sales or post-sales professional wants. But, I found myself in a predicament, which had me questioning how to gain influence with other stakeholders inside my client's place of business. In turn, this led me through the path of unraveling the central topic I learned on the Challenger Customer: how to guide and improve my chances of selling successfully in processes that require the involvement of multiple decision-makers.
If I, as a trusted advisor, was going to do my job well of fully unlocking that potential, as well as correctly master the concepts scripted on The Challenger Customer, I must get three things right:
Let's unpack each of these for easier understanding.
Teach
I love teaching. It is truly one of my passions; one I carry to other areas, beyond my professional career. So, as I ventured into teaching, my excitement got the best of me, as I knew this would be a rewarding experience. But, to teach about my area of expertise is one thing. To teach in an area such as sales, with its immense body of knowledge, was entirely different.
The first aspect I needed to understand was how to effectively build materials that reveal actual insights for my client. Luckily I wasn't ignorant in that arena, so that didn't pose a significant challenge. But, I ran into a challenge as hadn't taken seriously what Dixon and Adamson taught me in the Challenger Customer: building insights is an organizational capability, not an individual salesperson skill.
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That turned into a eureka moment for me. This meant that I could leverage the available resources I had at my disposal at the company to develop these insightful materials. Right there and then, I realized that I didn't need to be a one-man army.
From there, producing quality commercial insights became a team effort; one that moved our team to teach my client the core of our sales message, in the platform she preferred. After that space was secured, the next step was to capture her attention in a way that motivated her to champion a change in behavior, to rally the support of other stakeholders around a vision that leads the client back to our unique solution.
Tailor
Tailoring is a concept I also learned in the book "The Challenger Sale", and speaks to working our way down from the person's company to the individual person.
From a practical standpoint to me this meant influencing my client to push my company's message inside her organization. The two most important aspects I needed to comprehend, if I was to be successful in that effort were: what is most valuable for my client and what are the key business drivers for her organization.
The bottom line here was for me to address each client stakeholder as if they were actually the client. Remember, in today's world we must interact directly with several people. To do that successfully, we must customize the message to their level and treat each of them as if they were their entire organization.
Take Control
Now, the challenge with tailoring a message that fits the need of each stakeholder is that each of these decision-makers has his or her own mental model. In order to break down those barriers I had to come into the conversation by offering a framework; one that anchors a common vision between the group, instead of letting them default to a poor common denominator.
This is what it means to take control. As advisors, we need to feel comfortable with embracing the challenge. We must learn to navigate it and leverage it to our advantage. For example, we all have sat across the table from a silent client. To take control in situations like this I have had to learn to display a remarkable level of comfort with silence, avoiding the urge of jumping in to fill the void.
To master the craft of taking control, we must, first and foremost, learn to develop clarity of direction, while staying away from passing judgment or quickly coming to conclusions. Creating real value for our clients is of the utmost importance, because, to create value it's not only the right thing to do but the best way to foster strong business relationships that can resist the test of time.