Becoming a greater influence on yourself

When we learn about the topic of influence, we are first drawn to the benefit of influencing others. However since learning more about the subject, I believe the most valuable application of influence is on ourselves. 

Robert Cialini from his book, Pre-Suasion gives an example of a Canadian study of a call centre that displayed athletes winning running races achieved a 60% improvement in their sales results. 

Wanting to test that result, I have created the following slide deck to be a greater influence on myself and improve my sales performance.

Please feel free to try viewing these slides each day with me and see if you can discover an improvement in your sales performance. 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19vd3vIsYr6QuzODvLjtO0LKUFivZRWUVxEeA_DO5wYY/edit?usp=sharing

Try to limit your false-positive sales opportunities

Don’t be in a passive state with your sales opportunities. 

Sales opportunities are either real or they are not.  

Founders and sales people are generally positively biased.  You need to have that bias in order to get past the many rejections. 

False-Positive opportunities are bad for sales people. They soak up attention and energy you could be spending opening new opportunities.  

I would much rather have 2 real and validated opportunities instead of 20 soft ones. 

Practical Help (sales templates)

I have recently added a new section of sales templates to help startups with sales. 

 https://www.startupsalescoach.net/templates/

If you have very little sales experience there should be a few things here to help you get started! 

I will keep adding more content and structure if startup founders see it as useful. 

Are you listening?

One of the best ways to be persuasive and influential in sales is to listen. 

Listing is not when you stay quiet while your partner speaks.

Listening is active, seeking to really break down what their challenges or opportunities are from their perspective. 

Everybody appreciates when they are understood. They are more likely to pay attention to you and seek to understand your message.

Even great prospects will never get back to you

Many startup founders, particularly the technical ones get furious when a perfectly qualified sales opportunity return their calls.

How annoying!

The reality is that most of the selling process is in the follow-up:

• Did you receive my message about "X"?
• Can we organise a meeting?
• Did you have any question about the proposal I sent? 
• As discussed can you set that appointment with the CEO please?
• Are you ready to finalise the agreement? 
• Can we organise the implementation meeting next Tuesday? 

It is your responsibility to breathe energy into the sales process!

You need to make all the calls, suggest the next steps and help them through these steps. Generally your prospects will not “get around” to doing what they said they will do. You will need to coach them through every step. When they tell you they will call you back, they generally don’t!

Try to apply this thinking when you are running sales for your start-up. It should save some frustration and help you be more successful.

Competition

Do you know who your competitors are?

How do you feel about them?

Traditionally we view our competitors from a defensive position as they are often chasing the same deals as you. 

However at the very least you should learn from them. If you don’t know them, try to introduce yourself. Be brave. Learn what makes them tick and what their challenges are. 

At times I have collaborated with my competitors. For example a couple of years ago I worked with one competitor to help clean up the industry of mercenary contractors that were bringing our industry down. 

In the future you might seek to acquire these competitor or visa versa. So it helps to know them beforehand! 

Keep an open mind and you may find more benefits of collaboration than competing!

Be the better man or woman!

As a sales leader within your startup you should take responsibility for the failures and share the credit for your wins. 

Why?

When you are not successful, you, as a startup founder are best placed to make corrective changes.

You should have the best understanding of your startup. Employees are not as well positioned to know what changes need to occur.

Even if the person hired has failed, you should also take responsibility as you hired them, and/or neglected to train them properly.  

In management 101, you should always assume that most employee problems are a result of the environment they work under. Take responsibility for when things don’t go to plan.

On the flip side giving credit to all involved when you achieve a win is a unifying activity. I once worked for a CEO founder who tried to claim credit for the sales he had helped me with. This was a poor move for him and his company. 

Be the better man or woman! 

Demonstrating results when you have nothing to show

About 10 years ago I was working for a US-owned company that was seeking to expand the number of customers for its niche logistics software product. 

Typical with complex enterprise products, the sales cycle was slow..  

About 5 months into the assignment, my sales manager became agitated, because his boss (and probably a few others) were keen to see what progress the global sales team was making. Sales had been slower than predicted. 

You might find yourself in a similar situation with your investors. 

I responded by outlining my process for prospecting and building up opportunities. I also shared a copy of the hundreds of letters and phone calls I had been making.

Everything was there for them to see what I had been doing.  

After reviewing my activities and opportunities, my manager was satisfied that I was on the right track.   

In summary: 

• Draft up your sales approach. Outline how you will get your sales targets.  
• Keep a track of all your activities that are designed to lead to sales. 

Remember that the right activities lead to sales. It’s as simple as cause and effect! 

Dial up your confidence!

Everyone has a weakness or two. 

This may sound ironic to some who know me, but on occasions I struggle with self confidence!

We can all turn weaknesses into strengths. 

Many people who use artificial means to mask their insecurities, such as anger which is really just fear underneath.

This is what I do to boost my confidence:

• Understand in a rational way what is causing my lack of confidence. What can I do to addresss those concerns? Keep the mind boyant. In an unemotional way unpick the mental images that is attacking me.  
• Then follow the advice from Daniel Pink (To Sell is Human), ask the same question that Bob the Builder asks, “Can we fix it?” Have I completed all my preparation for this task? Does this mean that I am ready? If the answers are yes, then reflect on this preparation to help build a new personal narrative. 

If you find confidence or similar issues to be a challenge, be like Bob the Builder and fix It!

Make time your ally

On several occasions I made the error of stopping the communication with a prospect that seemed to have no hope of being my customer.

The reality is that all organisations are in a state of constant flux.

Find a way to ‘touch base’ with these organisations at least once a quarter. It could be as simple as a 5min phone call or a coffee catch-up.

By doing this you are not only getting good information, but you are building up relationships that can be relied on in the future. 

For example one contact that I had a good relationship with changed jobs. Although he could not purchase from me in the first organisation, the second organisation was much easier! 

Time marches on.

Opportunities will change.

Make time your ally.