The Sales Archaeologist

It has been said that Generals often do a great job at fighting the “last war”. Of course the problem with that is that things have changed and technology has developed making the old methods not only obsolete but deadly. But Generals are not the only ones that need to keep up with the times.

A Japanese soldier named Hiroo Onoda was discovered 30 years after world war two had ended and was still waiting to fight the Americans – nobody ever let him know the war was over.

Sales people are usually pretty good at recognizing the value of keeping up with the times and technology – who would argue with the fact that the cell phone, the lap top or the internet has made the job a little easier. But there are other tools where sales people are a little behind the times, let me explain.

Have you ever been on a sales call and felt like it was a repeat of the last war. Have you ever experienced Happy Ears or been too quick to have negative thoughts while on the sales call? Have these thoughts and feelings caused you to not listen as well as you should or to lose a deal? Have you had trouble “clicking” with people over and over again? Do you struggle to identify budgets, time-lines or decision making processes?

These problems are not uncommon and they are not unfixable – they could be caused by a number of hidden weaknesses and all you need to do is get Evaluated and find out which ones and how severe they are - Yet many sales people just plod on never knowing, understanding or fixing what ails them – they fight the last war over and over again – with the same outcomes.

So analyze what happens on your sales calls and if you encounter the same trouble over and over again please think about getting evaluated. No technique is going to fix it. No method or phrase will solve it. No book can teach you how to beat it. Until you know the cause you will simply be behind the times and not taking advantage of one of the greatest tools available to sales professionals.