Many have wondered what makes
successful sales professionals. What’s the key to this magic formula which can
help companies unlock millions, even billions of dollars in value? Different personas
come to mind - Successful sales people should have extrovert personality traits
– outgoing, ability to make connections and sustain strong relationships or the
consulting sales avatar.
All with the intent to get into the minds of the decision
makers and the organization one is selling to. How do you do that? Ability to
have a strong understanding of human psychology is perhaps now more than ever
the most important characteristic in successfully converting sales opportunities.
Let me explain this with an
example
I recently came across a scenario
where a mid-sized retailer has gone through a major leadership change – new CEO
who brings in a new leadership team to arrest sagging business performance and market
share loss to larger Tier 1 players.
Understand the decision context
The new CEO starts off
aggressively addressing the market share issue –
·
Focus on acquisitions – makes select
acquisitions in blue ocean market segment consolidating the retailer’s position
·
Places bets on few products – assesses the
product value chain across operations and technology, identifying gaps like
slower time to market, low business automation etc.
·
Change the culture to an inclusive one with
greater ownership and accountability to employees and investors
Technology and operations has
been seen as laggards and growth inhibitors. The new leadership team was tasked
with a larger transformational agenda to make the business process efficient
and change its own culture.
Take time to understand your key stakeholder’s current context of
decision making
Past context - In the previous
role, this CIO has balanced risks with business model transformation – selectively
taking risks in areas which required significant change, leaving others on
existing models which were under acceptable levels of outcomes.
Current Context – The CIO had to
bring in a new leadership team and create a culture of accountability and ownership.
The mandate was to radically transform technology – deliver key business
outcomes and ensure stability & resilience.
What clicked?
From analysis of human
psychology, it was found that the CIO forms an own opinion rather than rely on
the team, but takes them along on every step. Using the right language with the
right words resonating with the CIO’s decision making philosophy was important.
Also, engaging in conversations around the challenges which will come and how
to prepare the organization to face them was critical. Analysis also showed
that the CIO expected transparency and honesty, even if that meant compromising
your organization’s revenue prospects in the short term.
It’s important for sales
professionals to have a strong understanding of human psychology of their
stakeholders at various levels within the prospect organization – it’s a skill
more important than anything else.
In my next post, I will reveal
another key attribute in star sales professionals.
