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The balance between Realism and Positive Creativity
As a start up founder you need both Realism (getting to the cold truth of your sales prospects) and Positive Creativity (imagining a bright future for your product).
Both perspectives are important. Realism keeps you grounded and forces you to compensate for deals that will fall through. Positive Creativity leverages your most powerful tool, your imagination to build a great vision of the future!
Too much realism you get depressed. Nobody buys from someone who is negative.
Too much Positive Creativity and you are just dreaming!
Although these perspectives are contradictory, if you harness their power it will help you build a successful sales engine for your startup.
Having Darth Vader as your Sales Manager
This YouTube video shows Darth Vader displaying his management style in getting the second Death Star “back on track”:
Even as a child I felt the impressiveness of this scene. Vader’s “framing” of the situation quickly overcame the frame of his subordinate.
Sometimes it helps to have a Darth Vader type keep you more accountable:
- what is the pipeline looking like?
- are those opportunities real?
- what are you doing to close the sales now?
Find someone that can help you “dispense with the pleasantries” and get back to business!
It only needs to be a brief conversation once a week. The effect can be powerful!
No matter your background, you can master sales!
We all tend to look at extremely successful individuals as “gifted” with “natural-born talent”.
Until I read Robert Greene’s book, Mastery I thought the same way also.
I used to think that Einstein or Mozart were especially gifted. The following film excerpt of Mozart re-enforces these perceptions.
Viewing others as naturals is just a cognitive bias on our part. It is in the master’s interest to give the impression their talent is natural and takes no effort on their part. This keeps their would-be threats at bay.
The same goes for sales. No matter your background if you are prepared to work hard, learn and develop your EQ, you should also have a very good chance of sales success!
If you don’t believe me, then read Robert Greene’s book, Mastery.
Who should you seek to influence the most?
During a presentation to a group of startups last week, I asked, “who would you like to influence the most?”
The answers were the same as what I used to think:
- everyone I sell to
- my boss
- my employees
- the world!
Now having read “Pre-suasion” and “Influence” by Robert Cialdini, the person I would most like to influence is myself.
The effect of influencing yourself can be extraordinary. It can affect your personal performance, internal confidence and response to failure.
In the long run, being a greater influence to yourself will have a much greater impact on everyone around you!
Become a better influence by asking for advice
Over the past few months I have been a big fan of Robert Cialdini’s 2016 Book, Pre-Suasion.
Research has uncovered the fascinating fact that if we ask someone for advice, they are going to be more supportive of the product we are selling.
Despite people’s fears that asking for advise might cause people’s perception that we don’t know much, the evidence shows the opposite.
A great way to use this tactic is asking for advice on how to navigate an organisation’s structure for a proposed product. You are going to get greater support compared to not asking for advice!
Early stage startups don't need a “fancy” CRM
I get really frustrated when startups buy the coolest CRM and spending the next 5 hours tweaking it’s functionality until it’s PERFECT.
Don’t waste your money - and especially TIME.
Too many startups do not realise how short the startup life-cycle really is.
Time is not on your side.
Use every spare moment calling potential customers, setting up meetings, learning how to increase your sales success.
Instead of a CRM, just get started with a simple spreadsheet (Microsoft or Google Drive). With some basic tables, you can easily manage up to 50 opportunities on a single page.
(Sure when your sales machine is SOLID, you are bringing in over $50k every month, hiring new sales people - fill your boots and get a great CRM)
If this is not you yet, give yourself 10 mins to setup a spreadsheet you are comfortable with, and then get back on the phone and email and selling!
If you really need to have a CRM, then pick a free one that only takes a few minutes to setup.
Try this example spreadsheet as a starting point. Now it should take you 2 minutes!
"Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good."
Voltaire
My personal experiment with Pre-Suasion
About a month ago I published this article on how watching images of runners winning races can improve sales results by 60%. The research was outlined in Robert Cialdini’s latest book, Pre-Suasion.
Always wanting to be the guinea pig I gave it a try... To be honest at first I found it a bit weird looking a this slide deck of runners while calling customers... I was not convinced it would work!
This is the result of giving the pre-suasion experiment a try:
I feel more relaxed and at ease when calling prospects and customers.
When I am relaxed my mind is more capable of solving complex challenges and can be more articulate when speaking.
There has been a measurable increase in my success over the phone!
If you can get past the weirdness and give it a try you might be surprised.
More Practical Help (Online Training)
I recently published the following 2 training videos to help startups with selling:
https://www.startupsalescoach.net/sales-training/
It’s been in the works for a long time. The experience and feedback so far has encouraged me to produce more content. Stay tuned!
When the sales drought ends
Today I hit a purple patch in sales after several weeks of disappointment. The feeling of closing deals is amazing!
However intoxicating the good feelings are, you need to keep a stoic perspective with the following:
- Aside from my efforts, what other factors have contributed to this windfall? As humans we are hardwired to internalise success and externalise failure.
- Write down how you are feeling right now. Use that description during the tough days or weeks. Success breeds confidence and this willkeep your confidence high when times are tough.
- Immediately look around for another sale to make. While you are on a roll it’s easier to close new deals.
I will now go and follow my own advice!
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
