Why Sales Are Grown Not Made

The general belief in the sales community is that we are in the business of ‘making sales.’

I believe that's a flawed and even counterproductive notion.

It is an innocent enough phrase, but it has a sinister effect, as it fosters the belief can actually (and should) make sales

We can’t.

Far from being a mere turn of phrase, it creates a mental framework that sets us up for failure. The reality is that a sale is not something we can make, like a paper plane or a coffee table. It is more like a plant. We can’t make a plant; we only have control of its environment, and depending on how we do that, it will either thrive or die.

Similarly, a sale.

A sale is not something we can make or do. It is the result of what we do.

This is not a matter of semantics. ?How we frame something i.e., perceive it, influences how we act.

We act according to our beliefs, and what we believe i.e., how we see things, is our reality. If we believe we can make a sale, we proceed to act like we can by doing things to Buyers in the hope of making them buy. For example:

Needs Discovery

Demos

Presentations

Proposals

Closing

etc

They are all things we do to Buyers, as opposed to things we should do with them.

Big difference.

The Metaphor of Plants

A plant grows when you provide it with an optimal environment—soil quality, nutrients, light, temperature, etc.

Similarly, a sale is the outcome of the environment you create for it and, more specifically, for Buyers.

That environment is often described as ‘The Sales Experience’ (e.g., in ‘The Challenger Sale’ and other texts refer to it). However, it is a misnomer, as it refers not to the Seller’s experience but to the Buyer’s experience of engaging with you. For example, the extent to which you are a source of insight, curator of information, knowledgeable, a sounding board, empathetic, etc.

It would probably have been better to call it the Buyer Experience.

Anyway, the point is to create an environment where the Buyer Experience is one that encourages them to buy from you, much like your ministrations encourage a plant to grow.

If its environment is sub-optimal, a plant will struggle and likely die. Dare I draw a comparison with a stuck pipeline?

The comparison is apt, as there is little you can do to ‘the sale’ to improve its health or to the Buyer, for that matter. Rather, it is about what you do to improve the Buyer’s environment i.e., all the things that can act upon and influence the Buyer.

Reframing Sales Through a Different Lens

Traditionally, sales strategies and tactics are framed as actions to be performed on buyers, such as those I mentioned earlier. And let’s not forget the ubiquitous ‘overcoming objections. In that ‘making-of-the-sale’ framework, the seller is an active agent, guiding (manipulating?) the buyer through a series of predetermined steps.

It is a seller-centric approach. We even call those sequences ‘sales’ cycles.?

However, there is another way. It’s called ‘buyer-centric,’ where rather than shepherding buyers through our sales cycle (our environment), we create an environment that naturally guides or facilitates them on their buyer journey (their environment) to making a decision.

So, what is the practical difference?

In my view, shifting from seller-centric to buyer-centric means shifting focus from need, the traditional seller focus, to value. And value in a much broader sense than it is usually viewed as.

A needs focus is another example of a framing bias. Sellers have what they believe are ‘solutions’ and search for prospects with specific problems. They observe prospects through the frame of their solution (like a cure searching for a disease), not through the Buyer’s frame of their broader issues/challenges. That sets up a ‘must make a sale’ attitude and the associated behaviors.

Compare that with Sellers who have a value focus. They explore Buyers desired future states (their motivation for buying rather than the buying per se) and in the broadest sense i.e., not through their 'solution' lens. They encourage Buyers to articulate in their own words what success looks like. There's no mention of ‘products or services, as they have nothing to do with the Buyer’s issues.

They frame the conversation entirely around Buyer-desired outcomes and conduct it in Buyer language.

The Buyer-Centric Seller

That said, a significant hurdle in implementing buyer-centric approaches is how sellers are traditionally measured, performance managed and compensated. Traditional models effectively incentivize Sellers to be seller rather than buyer-centric e.g., rewards are typically based on sales results alone rather than on the things (creating environments) that result in sales.

That might make sense if you see their role as ‘making’ sales. However, if instead, sales were framed as ‘create an environment that helps buyers buy’ (OK, clunky verbiage. Needs a word), that would encourage different behavior.

So, how could that work in practice?

In previous articles, I suggested that sellers could benefit from taking a few leaves out of the playbooks of elite athletes. They don’t aim to win medals (analogous to winning sales) but to improve their personal bests or PBs. They create direct feedback loops that drive continuous improvement by measuring and improving performance incrementally.

While medals and target achievement signify success, they offer little actionable insight into how to improve and become a better athlete or seller.

What might it look like if we were to adopt a PB model? Imagine assessing your sales performance using metrics such as:

Prospecting: Volume and degree of qualification of new opportunities.

Buyer Engagement: growth in trust (can be assessed) and validating Buyer Perceptions of Value i.e., the criteria buyers personally use to assess value (WIIFM) e.g., job security, reputation, advancement, risk appetite, and so on?

Sales Strategy: identifying/recruiting influencers. Validating decision criteria etc.

Sales Tactics: Conversation outcomes.

They’re just a few examples of activities that can be observed and assesssed and thus improved.

The Seller as an Athlete?

How athletes compete provides another very relevant lesson for Sellers.

I use this image of Roger Federer in my training courses to illustrate the athlete’s mindset.

?

I ask the group, ‘Where do you suppose Roger’s mind is at?’

‘On the ball’

‘Exactly. He’s totally focused on putting that ball where his competitor can’t hit it back.’

‘What if,' I ask, ‘his mind was on the match or the tournament?’

‘He’d fluff the shot’ (or some version of that).

I suggest that in sports, that's often referred to as ‘choking,’ the effect of being overcome by the occasion. For example, champions may excel in the heats and fail to achieve similar performances in the final.

You could say they took their eye off the ball.

I then ask the group, ‘When you’re engaging with a Buyer, where is your head? What is coming out of the Buyer’s mouth or the sale?

9 out of 10 answer ‘making the sale!’

'Ahhh...and that is why so many Sellers fail in the final!'.

It is the same phenomenon. Just as athletes have the pressure of expectation (of others) on them, so do Sellers e.g., 1 on 1’s, interminable pipeline reviews ‘when are you going to close…?’

Top coaches do their best to isolate their charges from the noise and have them focus on ‘doing their work’ to improve their PBs. They never say, 'You must win that medal (a.k.a sale).'

Why, then, should sales leaders?

The lesson is: Take care to create the right inputs e.g., create the right environments, and the outcomes will take care of themselves

What if we applied the same model to selling?

Join the conversation, have your say on the Seller Code, and help reshape the perception of selling and Sellers in the?Implementing the Seller Code?Group.

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My focus is value-focused sales approaches; you will find plenty of free material in the?Resources page of my website.

And if you would like some insight into how Buyer and value-focused your sales processes are, try this FREE self-assessment. There are two versions.

Individuals or Sales Teams?and one?especially for MSP's

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