"The Status Quo Is Simply Unacceptable"
Brad Henry, Former Governor of Oklahoma
"Working the land "HOPING" for a fertile spring"
Settling... Complacency, content, creatures of comfort; it is out there right now within the closets of sales teams. Lurking in the dark shadows of their successes, hiding where you least expect to find it is a great balancing act of excuses. It is the silent sales killer, lurking and striking sales teams without warning. It can bring even the biggest and brightest teams to their knees.
"Settling, better know as Complacency"
Don't think it can happen to you? It strikes, every day. Settling, it happens to small sales teams even to the big and almighty. Settling is a ruthless disease. It cares not about the size of your sales team, length in business, or what day of the week it is. It cares only of the weak and timid or the wait and see what happens, the hard reality behind this is while your sales team became content some other sales teams were not. With extreme precision they rewrote the playbook adapting to the changes inside the buyer's world.
"We plow our sales fields for growth in a digital business world yet coach sales reps to fertilize sales fields with analog sales tools, WHY?"
Digitally enhanced sales teams have remodeled, retooled and re-engineered the sales business model cultivating it, making it better, leaner, rebranding it to resonate with today's modern business executive and KABOOM your client's have become their appetite for destruction. You allowed them right into your sales jungle. Your client base has become their paradise city where the grass is green and the sales revenue is pretty!
As sales teams aim to reinvent themselves in this highly connected, highly networked B2B buying world, leaders must become proactive; constantly on the lookout for the sales cues to assure their teams are not becoming complacent.
Constantly Be on the Lookout for these 5 Sales Settling Signs
1. Loss of Passion - The passionate pursuit of excellence is the fuel which stimulates high-performance and a contagious, winning attitude. Steve Jobs once said,
“I’m convinced that about half of what separates ‘the successful’ from the ‘non-successful’ is pure perseverance."
Steve Jobs
When sales reps have reached a point where their passion is lost, they will find it almost impossible to find any level of sales success.
2. Don't Invest in Themselves - When a sales reps stop investing in themselves, it's a warning sign they have lost their drive to become a high performer. Equally concerning are the tenured sales reps who stop investing in themselves because they feel they have learned enough or believe they know enough people (established client base) to get by and cruise through business life.
3. Stop Thinking - When sales reps stop asking questions, challenging themselves or their teammates, this is cause for concern; for one, they have stopped adding value to the team. When they have mentally decided to just go with the flow, they have decided to stop thinking and are only concerned about completing what they are managed to do just to get by.
4. Not Managing Their Personal Brand - I'll admit, most sales reps don’t manage their personal brand because they don’t know how however; those sales reps who are motivated to achieve greater success in their careers are aware of its importance and are making every effort to figure out their personal brand.
Learn more about brand building inside the Social Sales Academy.
With encouragement, personal branding for sales reps is a leadership responsibility, not a self-promotion campaign. Sales reps are front and center, a portrait of the company. A fantastic way to amplify the company's brand is coaching the sales department to build their brand.
5. No Sense of Urgency - Playing the waiting game. Waiting for customers to call them or a little birdie to drop a lead on their desk. Lack of urgency in developing business is a sales killer. No matter how successful your day, month or sales year has been you must act as if you're always climbing to get to the next level.
Proactive sales development must come by doing things to push you out of your comfort zone. One huge area involves how to gain and attract net-new business and not constantly relying on current accounts. Many salespeople that fail have a hard time making calls on new prospects. Discover the new way B2B sales reps win net-new business here
"Salespeople have hypnotized themselves into believing what they aren't doing doesn't work"
Ignite the fire within your sales team and help them kick the sales settlers disease!
"We're operating on autopilot and it's killing our dreams and stunting our success"
Jim Keenan, Not Taught
The luxury of time no longer exists. Settling and complacency have become a rampant epidemic within sales departments.
Do not Settle, Help your Sales Team... Inspire them to Crush & Create the Change in a Digital Business World
Acceptance of change is critical within the information age we live in. This applies directly to the sales settler's mentality.
We have only three responses to change --- resist it, accept it or create it. A change resistor likes things just the way they are. A change acceptor will wait to see what is happening. While change creators have become today's problem solvers.
Attention to all sales teams out there... become the change creators in your industry. Take charge of the buyer's journey.
"The reason why the buyers are so far along in their journey is your fault."
Change creators identify new processes, look for new opportunities, bringing new and different insights into businesses with the goal of helping corporate executives solve problems or challenges.
Adopting a change creators mentality your sales team will become true professionals focused on helping their prospects and clients for all the right reasons versus closing the "big deal" for their personal benefit.
Time to plow the fields with a combine (a digital skill set) as opposed to a horse- drawn plow (an analog skill set).
If you would like some inspiration I welcome the conversation or send me a message to llevine@socialsalesacademy.net. Your comments are greatly appreciated.
In 2016, Larry was recognized by ENX Magazine, “The Difference Maker” as someone who is making a difference inside the copier channel. Larry is passionate about helping sales reps succeed in creating their online brand image
Look for more information within the Social Sales Academy blog site.
I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my LinkedIn stories. Integrating the use of LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive copier world. With great pride, I transform and coach B2B Office Technology Sales Professionals to grow net-new business by helping them tell their story and communicate on LinkedIn. My commitment is to help office technology dealers thrive in a changing marketplace. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, as well as at the Social Sales Academy
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