RED-OCEAN MINDSET

REVISING THE SALES PLAYBOOK TO IGNITE SALES EQ

There was a book a few years ago called Blue Ocean Strategy. The concept was that a blue ocean means that the water is deep, has a lot of fish, and has fewer people fishing. Thanks to COVID-19, however, businesses are suddenly finding themselves in a red ocean; shallow water, fewer fish, more competitive fishing, bloody with competition.

This pandemic is a 360-degree issue. It’s not like a hurricane that just hit New Orleans. COVID has happened everywhere. It’s affected everybody. And it’s disrupted the very basic levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

So, the landscape has changed. From a sales perspective, this means competition. The pressure is going to be on sales team management to select the right sales talent and to revise the sales playbook. And that sales playbook is going to require igniting the talent’s sales EQ to create a high-performing sales team. Sales leaders and their teams are going to need to learn how to think on the fly, to improvise, to get creative. 

Have you ever wondered how a SEAL team, who strictly operates in times of uncertainty, can have an 80 percent success rate? They have an extremely high EQ. Most SEALs teams prepare for seven to eight scenarios prior to a mission, though less than 30 percent of the time do any of those scenarios they prepared for actually happen. Their success is based on great decision-making in the moment and having a red-ocean mindset at all times.

For sales leaders to succeed in today’s marketplace, they need to train their sales talent to think like SEALs and ignite their sales EQ!

For additional ideas on using Sales EQ to build a high performance sales team, get your copy of Igniting Sales EQ, available online at Amazon.