Why comfort kills sales performance (& what sales managers can do about it)

Despite what they might say during their job interview, most salespeople will naturally focus on behaviour inside their comfort zone . . . and avoid behaviour they find uncomfortable, even though it may drive higher sales performance.

• They feel comfortable sending emails, doing 'research' and speaking to existing customers.
• They feel uncomfortable making prospecting phone calls, doing strategic planning and up-selling.

So, they come up with all kinds of logical-sounding justifications why they can't, won't or shouldn't do any of the former things.

The fact is, all growth and much of higher performance resides on the other side of comfort.

The poet Robert Browning once said, “Man's reach should exceed his grasp.” In other words, all of us, and especially salespeople, have to stretch our beliefs and behaviour in order to succeed.

Most salespeople refuse to accept the need for change unless there is a catastrophic event causing them to think differently about their situation.?

• "I'm doing OK."
• "I hit target."
• "My customers won't like it if I try something different."

These are all classic excuses for not considering the possibility of change.

There’s an old saying, popular among effective sales coaches:?

“Salespeople change only when the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain involved in the change.”

When it supports growth, change is not a light switch that goes on and off, rather it’s a dimmer switch that gradually transitions the salesperson to a new more desired state.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross pioneered the five stages of grief model to help individuals deal with personal trauma and bereavement. These five stages:

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance...

...are typically applied to those individuals dealing with death, dying or catastrophic loss.

You can easily apply a variation of the Kübler-Ross model to salespeople with four “transition steps” to describe the change process.

This transition model shows four stages salespeople go through when considering change:

• Denial (that change is necessary).
• Resistance (to the change that's needed).
• Exploration (of possible options).
• Commitment (to a new pattern of behaviour).

The key to helping salespeople move through these four stages involves understanding specifically where the salesperson is right now in terms of the four stages and then helping them move through each stage to gain the momentum required to make the necessary changes.

Most traditional coaching fails because the coach expects the salesperson to begin the coaching session with a willingness to explore behaviour and engage in belief modification.

This approach ignores the reality that many salespeople deny and resist the need to change (regardless of what they may say to please a manager) and are complacent about the results they are currently achieving.

In the early stages of coaching the coach must help the salesperson move from the stages of denial and resistance into the area of exploration, which is the stage where true growth will happen.

This takes patience and practice . . . but it is the only reliable strategy for helping salespeople to decide for themselves that the time has come to move beyond their comfort zone.?

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