Drained or radiating?
- Question: What’s the best way to eat an elephant?
- Answer: Piece by piece!
In sales, it’s all about slicing the big win into a series of small ones and knowing what we’ll accomplish before we need to re think. We must get sharper with every experience, celebrate the incremental gain and feel energized to take the next bite! Sometimes, our expectations are just not realistically calibrated and leave us feeling flat and drained. Beating ourselves up will not help!
Closing is the ‘big win’, the overarching goal but ‘stepping stone’ small wins are also good. These can include sharing information that adds value to the customer, influencing stakeholders, gaining new contacts or moving the opportunity one or more stages through your sales pipe.
If we can close it out completely this time we must aim for an intermediate gain such as a part order, a trial order, product approval or submission of a revised offer.
How do these stepping stones make your sales visits productive? With a clear main objective, intelligent and stretching intermediate goals and some realistic retreat aims, we retain control of the process and move the opportunity nearer to the final ‘Yes!’
Incremental gains offer on the spot flexibility and agile adjustment of your approach regardless of how the journey twists and turns. This reduces panic if your main aim seems currently out of reach and avoids that all too detectable whiff of desperation which sees us agreeing to a bad deal just to salvage something.
And here’s the bonus; we win something in every sales visit no matter how they turn out.
Closing is the ‘big win’, the overarching goal but ‘stepping stone’ small wins are also good.
Related courses
Consultative Selling
