Perseverance - Enterprise Seller Quality 4 of 8

This article and the subsequent "Seller Quality Deep-Dives" were published last year on my website. I'm re-publishing them on LinkedIn to streamline my website and make this content more accessible. If you've read this before, I invite you to revisit it. The Seller Qualities Model continues to be as relevant today as it was 2 years ago. If you're new-- welcome! This is why I left a role as a strategic seller and started a business to coach individual sellers.

I became a fan of World Rally Championship (WRC) in college. In a time before its popularity in the U.S. had grown (and before streaming content on the web), the only way to catch WRC was in the middle of the night on some obscure cable sports network. I fell in love with the sport because unlike most auto racing here in the U.S., rally racing doesn't happen on a tightly controlled racetrack where a pit full of engineers can be visited at any time. There are no safety cars, caution flags, or parade laps.

Instead, closed public roads covered by a mix of tarmac, gravel, and snow become rally "stages," point-to-point sections of the total race. The clock only runs while the rally car is on the stage, and it pauses between stages for fuel, maintenance, and repairs. Since the winner is determined by the lowest cumulative time over all the stages, drivers are only out of the race if they fail to complete a stage. This leads to some truly unbelievable scenes as drivers attempt to finish a stage at all costs. I've seen flipped-over rally cars returned to their wheels by helpful fans. I've seen drivers use their hands as windshield wipers. I've even seen a rally car complete a stage with only three wheels, sparks flying from the exposed brake rotor.

As I spoke with my long-time SE Mike Riggs about Perseverance, I couldn't help but think of these crazy rally races. In so many of life's endeavors, choosing to forge ahead no matter the obstacle is critical for success. But as Mike shares with us, there are unique benefits for those who have Perseverance in Enterprise sales.

For Your Customers

Enterprise Selling isn't just doing big deals. It requires that the solution is transformational to the customer and the decision to buy withstands scrutiny from more than a single department. By its very nature, Enterprise Selling takes time. If a single transaction cycle is 12+ months (which is common), and the transformation of a customer requires multiple transactions (almost guaranteed), it stands to reason that just being present for the fullness of a customer's transformation will require Perseverance.

But as Mike shared with us, Perseverance positively impacts customers even beyond this. The seller who is able to stay the course with a customer through changing circumstances learns the customer organization with eyes that only time can provide. Just like we become better sellers through pattern matching across many sales cycles, the Persevering seller will start to see trends and predict outcomes within a specific customer organization that can have a huge positive impact for that customer.

Your outside perspective can provide insight that the customer cannot see on their own. Imagine how much more valuable your outside perspective will be if your insights are informed by years of observing and working with the customer organization. This is a reality for Persevering sellers, and it's one of the reasons why the customers who have the greatest success with a company's products are also the ones that have had the least turnover in their AE.

For Your Peers

My experience working side-by-side with Mike Riggs had a huge impact on my own ability to weather unexpected circumstances in my accounts and with my employer. I can think of several occasions where, in the midst of a customer transition or major changes in our own leadership, I would start to have doubts, and Mike's Perseverance would rub off on me. Getting a healthy dose of perspective from Mike helped me to stay the course and reap the benefits of my own developing Perseverance.

And it can go beyond just the AE/SE relationship. As Mike mentioned in the video, there are broad benefits to your peers when you decide to practice Perseverance. The positive attitudes, creativity, and results that manifest out of an individual's Perseverance can become contagious to the team around them. If you think about teams with a strong culture of success, my guess is that their genesis likely had more to do with Persevering through trials than stumbling upon a lucky win. How different would your team look if instead of joining in the cynicism about the changed comp plan or product stability issues you decided to exercise Perseverance?

For Yourself

I always find it shocking when I speak to candidates who desire to sell at the strategic level but make a habit of staying with their employer for less than 2 years. It can be tempting to jump-ship to the hottest new thing, and recruiters always promise an easier path to commissions at a new company. The frustrations, set-backs, and hurdles that inevitably come can seem like indications that you're in the wrong place. Even so, I am perplexed. We've already touched on the benefits of Perseverance for your customers and your peers above, but the benefits to you personally for Persevering are so compelling, I really am confused why the turnover in sales is so high.

When Mike talked about his experience with Mike Maples Jr., he debunked the myth we so often hear about the "big exit." More often than not-- and certainly if you are a seller-- the bulk of your income will not come from stock and an IPO. You stand to make far more (and far more consistently) by building real value through long-term customer relationships. When you think of those peers in your network who have had 3, 4, 500%+ quota years, it's typically not in their first or second year with a company. As we mentioned above, transforming a customer at the Enterprise level takes years, not months. And earnings are just part of the benefits to you. Why do the "old-timers" have all the best accounts? Well, developing their own accounts is certainly a factor, but as other sellers come and go in a sales org, the largest and most active accounts necessarily move to those who remain, a side benefit of weathering the storm.

Perhaps more compelling than all of this is the chance to be a part of something truly special; to contribute to the culture, impact, and success of an organization in a way that is far broader than just delivering deals. Most of the top-tier sellers I know aren't looking for the place where they can make the biggest commission check, they are looking for a place where they can do something that matters... and you can't do that without Perseverance.

Don't Quit Before the Checkpoint

As we wrapped up our interview, Mike shared solid-gold advice as he discussed his experience in endurance running. Essentially, he said you need to decide at the outset what circumstances would make quitting necessary. No matter what happens after that, if you don't hit one of those circumstances, keep going.

But selling is not exactly like a 100-miler. M&A events, new management, changing market conditions, personal challenges-- the world can change a lot after the "race" begins, and frankly, sometimes the right decision is to move on to something new. How do we know when to "fold 'em" without being overwhelmed by uncertainty and doubt at every bump in the road? Thankfully, Mike shared the insight of his experience with us, and it's not unlike a WRC rally stage. He suggests setting "checkpoints," time horizons where you consider where you are, where you are heading, and what other options might be out there. Between checkpoints, keep pressing forward no matter what happens.

The result will be benefits to your customers, your peers, and yourself that are frankly impossible without Perseverance.