About Peter Pan, Captain Hook, and sales methodology. And some Tic Toc

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I was spending the weekend with friends and their young kids were watching Peter Pan. I spent a few minutes watching good ol' Peter Pan fighting against Captain Hook and the "Tic Toc" crocodile - two words, no k - . As I am sure you know, this story is an allegory of youth, Peter Pan, versus old(er) age, Captain Hook, the latter being pursued by death and its inevitability, the "Tic Toc" crocodile.

Peter Pan is full of potential. And he sees Captain Hook amongst other things as rigorous. So he doesn't want to end up the same way, he wants to keep his freedom, bubble away with enthusiasm. He refuses to be disciplined. Unlike the pirates, adults, who have to follow orders.

But whilst Peter Pan is naturally a more friendly and relatable character, there is an issue with this. A big issue. Which I couldn't help thinking about as I am currently reading the book "Grit : Why passion and resilience are the secret to success" from Angela Duckworth.?

Peter might have a lot of talent. But talent is not enough as Angela says. Raw talent needs effort to transform itself in skill. And once skill is acquired, it needs more effort, to be applied over and over again so to transform itself into achievements.

So refusing to apply effort might very well end up costing a real life Peter Pan dearly. And let's be honest, we all came across a few Peter Pans in our lives that had plenty of talents but didn't succeed. As Calvin Coolidge said, way before Angela Duckworth :

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

So you may wonder, dear reader, what the heck Peter Pan, Captain Hook and Angela Duckworth have to do with sales.?

Well, there are only two things that sales people control.

1. What they do.
2. How they do it.?

Yet, what often surfaces when I talk to sales leaders is that there is a process in place - albeit more often than not it’s just some steps in the CRM rather than a robust sales process, detailing for example what needs to be done before, after, during an interacting with a prospect -, they have gates, KPIs etc... But what they are lacking is a methodology that helps sales people make sure the process is followed. A methodology that, applied with effort again and again over time helps sales people acquire new selling skills. And ultimately achieve more...

So their sales people are, somewhat, like little Peter Pan. They interact with their prospects joyfully and enthusiastically. But with no discipline. "How" they interact with their prospect is totally left up to them. There is a lot of improvisation:

1. How relationships are built with their clients
2. How value is built while interacting with prospects
3. How they avoid doing free consultancy and spewing all about the benefits of their great products and services
4. How they manage larger opportunities or even accounts
5. How they hunt in group
6. How they avoid educating their prospect for free, etc, etc...…

All these are left to the initiative of the sales people who rely on their “people skills”.

So when I ask individual performers "Could you document clearly what these "people's skills" are exactly about so that the rest of the team can benefit from it", well... Crickets...

They may be talented people. But there is a lack of rigueur and Consistency (one of the 5C of Curiosity ). And the responsibility of this situation falls squarely at the feet of the leadership...?

Elements of a methodology

So what methodology to implement so that overtime sales people get the result they deserve? Naturally, this depends on every organisation. A consulting organisation selling ￡/€250k tickets or with accounts that can bring a few ￡/€ millions will naturally adopt a different methodology than a SaaS company that has ￡/€30k or even a ￡/€ 3k tickets.

But there are quite a few key elements in a methodology that organisations can benefit from. I am not listing them all here of course. But the ones I suggest below tend to be some that sales people often struggle with - or would benefit from having -. And one of the objectives I pursue here, if you aren’t as obsessed as I am when it comes to sales, is to help you dear reader get a sense of the difference between a sales process and a sales methodology. And that applying the right methodology with constancy helps your team sharpen their skills and, over time, achieve far more than they are currently. And with less effort.

1- Questioning strategies. Too often organisations hiring sales people train them right away on their product(s) and service(s). At the risk of being brutal, they transform their sales people into product brochures to educate their prospects. Of course, product knowledge is important but "with great power comes great responsibilities". And the responsibility of sales people is to deliver the right information, at the right time. But it’s hard for human beings, especially sales people that have a target to achieve, to refrain from blindly explaining what they do. What sales people need, in a uniformed, detailed manner is to understand the various issues and needs of their prospects. And to do so, more than being trained on the product very early on, they need to be given a questioning strategy.

2- Messaging: Before starting a transformation program with sales teams, I do a detailed analysis of their various sales systems - eg: hiring, management, coaching, prospection, etc... - as well as the sales DNA of the team, 21 core competencies they need to succeed and how they compare against their competitors (you can have a brief overview here). One thing that constantly surfaces is the sheer lack of uniformity in the way sales people explain what their organisations do. The infamous "elevator pitch". Would you imagine two pilots from an airline starting a flight check in two different ways? No. Me neither. So why are sales people starting a conversation with prospects in totally different ways? And that variation doesn't occur just across sales people. But even across time, asking an individual contributor: “What does your organisation do?” would yield different answers. Why so much fluctuation, as opposed to defining the best way to initiate a conversation and stick to it?

I can hear some people think "Well, airline pilots do their checklist of flight because it's a matter of life or death". I agree. But “First impression matters”. So the messaging used to position a conversation with prospects to secure a new deal is also a matter of life and death for many sales opportunities. And a powerful methodology would define the top of the funnel messaging.?

(And if right at the top there is so much variation, what does it say about the rest of the interactions ?)

3- Communication: We all know of the expression "people buy from people". Yet the full and proper expression is "People buy from people they like and trust". And the best (only?) way to build this likability and this trust is of course the way sales people communicate. But communication is a minefield. Humans are fascinating. But blimey... Aren't they complicated? And to deal with this complexity, we think we know how to communicate simply because we've been taught to speak from birth. Yet we are generally very poor at communicating. We are self-centred. We are not inquisitive enough. We make assumptions. We struggle to understand what matters for people we talk to. We are controlled by unconscious biases. We forget to validate the people we interact with to make them feel good. And so sales people think they understand their prospects. They think they communicate well. Yet they simply don’t… As Robert Mckloskey, US Secretary of States during Vietnam War, said:

I know that you believe that you think you understand what I said, but I am not sure you realise what you heard is not what I meant.

This lack of communication skills has a huge impact on the revenues of an organisation as sales is THE (capital THE) function where the ability to communicate well is directly correlated to the earning potential and the revenues generated for the organisation... So explaining the code and details of a communicating better, build better relationships - both internally as well as externally - is key to a good methodology - clue: it's not talking about one's product / service / great ROI / benefits -.?

4- Selling on value: A CEO once told me, verbatim - albeit in French - "We are selling discount. We are not selling products". Oooouch. Impact: up to 5% of his top line. Considering the size of his turnover, this wasn’t chump change.

What's the best way to sell value? Well, the beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. So the best (only) way to build value is done through the tough questions asked. Rather than explain the value delivered... More asking, less telling. And a good sales methodology details the types of questions that sales people should ask to understand the value that their prospects see in their product and services. So they can capture as much value as possible and, if there is no value to be created, qualify out as quickly as possible to focus on more relevant prospects.??

I could carry on this list as there are many other parts that constitute a powerful selling methodology. And there are a lot of benefits organisations derive from implementing one :

1- Knowing what works and what doesn't. Rather than improvising and not being able to know for sure the reasons the prospect ended up buying.??

2- Having a consistent approach that helps sales people focus on their prospects rather than having to constantly think about what to say, how etc...

3- Being able to constantly get better, à la Angela Duckworth applying effort on talent to acquire skills and effort on skills to get better results. When people sell the "Peter Pan way" - i.e. joyfully but without consistency and rigueur -, it's simply impossible to improve.??

4- Getting a better adherence to the sales process.?Multitude results demonstrate the gain secured through sales process adherence.

5- Adopting a common language throughout the sales organisation. This is even more powerful when the methodology is shared also with the rest of the organisation that touches in one way or another prospects and clients.?

Beyond a methodology :?

But nothing is easy in life. Developing a methodology isn't enough. As there are many hurdles to a proper adoption that prevent, over time, sales teams to achieve as much as they truly deserve.

Firstly, we are creatures of habits and we are what we constantly do. I often use the parallel of sport where top sportsmen and women constantly practise. Yet too often, sales people have 0 time in their diary blocked to repeat the various phases of their craft. The only time they practice is when in front of a customer. Would you imagine, say, a tennis man / woman practising only during major tournament? Clearly not. So defining a methodology isn’t sufficient. Practicing it again and again in a safe setting is key to success. For this role play is a fantastic tool.

Secondly, we are our worst enemies. There is this slightly overused quote that 99% of the harm done in life is done by our thoughts. Whatever the percentage, it is true that self-limiting beliefs are a scourge especially in sales. In a role with uncapped earning, what prevents people to earn more is … themselves and what's between their two ears.? For example, when practicing role plays, I often hear salespeople telling me “But I cannot ask this question to the prospect” / “I cannot tell them this”. Yet, if other colleagues have no problems doing so who is the hurdle, if not the sales rep and his / her limiting beliefs?..?

Tic Toc?

So, dear reader, one last question. Captain Hook was afraid of the crocodile who already had a small bite of him and wanted more. And if that Croc was your competitor, what’s the cost you are prepared to pay for not implementing a proper sales methodology across your team, make sure they adapt it and for not building the right sales systems that surround your team for them to succeed? A hand like Captain Hook? Or more? Tic Toc, Tic Toc, Tic Toc…

???

PS: if you want to understand the list of 40+ self-limiting belief that prevent your sales people to succeed, ping me or click on this link to download them. And the same apply for the self limiting belief of sales manager available here (the download page is in French but the documents are available in both French or English).

Version fran?aise ici: https://curio5ity.com/a-propos-de-peter-pan-capitaine-crochet-grit-and-les-methodes-de-ventes/