Growing Sales
Recently, a client that had hired me as a sales coach told me that I was not everybody's cup of tea, but that he was trying to acquire the taste.
Today, I had a current client tell me that he now realizes that I had to spend some time tearing him down before I could build him up, but I had to keep him together so that his family, co-workers and customers don't see his struggle.
Tomorrow I have a call scheduled with a pretty sharp salesman. He signed up for a free coaching call a couple of weeks ago and I followed up with an email. It started with "I hope that you got something usable out of today's call." A paragraph later, I added, "Now, you may wonder why I didn't offer to coach you and whether it was a trick. It's not a trick. You're not done failing yet. You haven't struggled enough." So, he's a sharp guy. Clearly, I'm not trying to sell him. Why does he want to talk to me tomorrow? In his words today, "Discuss your sales coaching services in detail - process, costs, expectations, etc." In reality, he wants to know if I can help him reach his full potential. What's his full potential? He doesn't have a clue because he can't imagine it yet.
A few months before I retired, I was asking an associate some tough questions at a company meeting. After a few minutes, he asked, "Rick, why do you have to be such an a-hole?"
Change is more important than what you think of me.
One last story...
I was on a call with a client, coaching him on how to handle a particular situation. I asked him how he would normally handle it and he told me and when we role played it with him being the salesperson and me being the prospect, he wound up where he always does and couldn't close a sale. Then we switched and I showed him what I would do. He didn't like it. I showed him another way. He didn't like that. So, I did it again and he didn't like my third suggestion. Why? He wanted me to show him how to make his approach work. He didn't want to change anything. He wanted to do the same thing, but get a different result. Why? because he was comfortable with it. Significant change is seldom comfortable. Seldom easy and seldom self induced.
Have you ever had a moment of weakness?
How about a moment of strength? That's what it will take. You'll need to say, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!" If you've never worked with me before, you can sign up for one free coaching session.
Rick Roberge