Atlantis. El Dorado. Camelot. Brigadoon. Xanadu. Let’s add one more mythical place to the list.
Top of Mind.
When I train and coach digital sellers, one key building block is what I call Sellers’ Intent. In short, what’s the point of the sales call you’re about to have, and what precisely do you want the customer to actually DO as a result of it? If the answers here are soft, retiring or ambivalent, the whole enterprise is hamstrung – if not doomed – from the start.
I’m going to do a presentation on our capabilities and why we’re a good choice for them. That way we’ll be top of mind when they’re working on their next plan.
Um, no.
There is no top of mind with media planning and investment teams. They’re paid to execute existing budgets and act on immediate needs. They’re focused on what needs to be transacted in the next six weeks. If you’re not filling that order and asking for that sale, you’re accomplishing nothing. And there’s no room for error in the timing.
Bring your Top of Mind show to higher level agency people (strategy and investment leads, Group VPs) or clients and the outcome – or more accurately, the non-outcome – is even worse. If you’re not solving a strategic marketing or business problem today, then you’re just another qualified option waiting for your shot. And these senior customers are not in the market for one more choice.
You have options. Have a POV on the client’s current direction and a specific plan for how you can compliment or extend it. Disrupt. Be prepared to create new value, new capabilities and budget redirection. Do the work to deserve the client’s commitment and then ask for it. Let them tell you that you’re being too ambitious, trying to do too much for them.
To be a seller is to advance a sale, not to go through safe, predictable motions. To visit a customer only hoping to be Top of Mind for some future hypothetical buy is to suffer the subtle bigotry of low expectations.
You can have more. Your intention, your ambition, your preparation and your actions to earn it are up to you.
Original Illustration by Eric Sands.
If there’s too much anxiety, disappointment, disconnection, blame and short-term thinking within your sales organization – or within your own personal sales career – you’re not alone. But the answer isn’t better management or oversight or organization. It’s leadership. From everyone.
Will you end up seeing any interim revenue If you form a proactive "bridge plan" for a key account in transition? Will these steps rescue your original buy? Can’t say. But the choice between proactive service and worried helplessness ought to be an easy call. Treat this current disruption as just one chapter in the relationship – as an opportunity to serve – and you’ll be making its foundation stronger. And how can that be a bad idea?
You can get anxious about the gap in your quarter. Or you can get busy. You won’t always close the gap, but how you go about it will always make you a better and more complete seller.
Perhaps there’s a friend in your life who shows up for you; not just with a kind thought or a supportive word, but ready to work. He’s someone you know will keep showing up, keep serving and doing for others, but he’ll do it with such humility and grace that … well, you might not completely appreciate him fully until the day he’s not there. For me that friend was Nick Johnson. And that day was today.
Too often, we not only ignore the implications of complexity, we actively conjure it up. We share dazzling flow charts and demos, packed with cylinders and data sources and lightning bolts. Terabytes of this and nanoseconds of that. We let our geek flags fly… and unintended consequences follow. It highlights what we know vs. what they don’t. It makes the customer feel unprepared, under-resourced. Complexity is the petri dish where doubt grows.
Want attention? Then pay more than your share. Do the work up front to really understand those on the other side of the screen. Engage in pre-meeting communication and planning to really align with their needs. Greet people when they show up. Have a second question to ask and really care about the answer. I’m going to work to be Attention Neutral going forward: for all I get, I’ll try to put back that much and more. I won’t just listen as much as I talk; I’ll care as much as I want to be cared about.
In my career I’ve seen about eight of these economic pullbacks, six of them in the digital era. No one can say exactly how long, precisely how deep, or specifically which companies come out better. But I’m confident in offering one blanket prediction and one bit of universal advice.
We here at Upstream appreciate the hard job you do. May a look at this list give you the extra lift you need in a moment of challenge.
Most of us show up for our hard-to-book C-Suite interactions with an agenda that’s far too junior and tactical, and we get swiftly delegated or – worse – ignored. It's because we don’t fully realize what the C in C-Suite stands for.
Too many of us plan meticulously for much of the meeting, but fail to do any planning for how it will end. Too much time is spent early on exposition and data, and too little is left for the disciplined closing process that could actually lead to a sale. Another mad, disorganized packing job ensues. And the probability and next actions we post in our CRM are little more than educated guesses. It doesn’t have to be this way.
As sellers and executives, we’re both sporadically connected to our colleagues and yet consistently alone in our work, accompanied by only our numbers, hopes and doubts. At Upstream Group, we are asking – humbly and curiously – what our role should be in this Season of Both. Why do our customers and community truly need us now? We are finding answers and developing strategies based on a handful of questions… questions I’d like to share with you today.
We spend an overwhelming share of our time building stories and presentations and proposals – our sandcastles – and almost no time on the closing and qualification strategies that would help them withstand the rising tide of the customer’s conflicting agendas and the waves of our competitors’ subsequent proposals and ideas.