Elephant is the breakfast of Sales Champions

Recently I posted the statement that "It's OK to throw out your plan, but you can't do it if you don't have one."  Not too long after that I got a phone call from one of my clients (we'll call him Joe Schmuckatelly) who shared, "Hey, that just happened to me!" -- that is, he'd just made a call where he'd been forced to abandon his plan.

Turns out there was a little more to the story, which I learned when I placed a call to Joe's Sales Manager.  Ownership of the account had recently changed hands and they were in the process of re-evaluating their suppliers.  Joe had already made two visits to the account to gather information and had asked a lot of questions (which the customer had answered), but Joe was still confused about what was really going on.  Were they ready to buy?  He thought so, in fact they had recently placed an order; the challenge is that Joe didn't know why they had placed the order.  During Joe's last visit, the customer shared some frustration about the questions and had asked Joe to provide a company and product presentation -- a third visit was scheduled so that Joe would have time to prepare.

Joe asked his Sales Manager to join him on this third call, so their first order of business was to conduct a pre-call plan.  By moving through the Outcome Based Thinking process, Joe and his manager crafted a mutually-agreed upon plan with primary and secondary goals that were appropriate to the situation including the realization that if you aren't sure what's going on, you should probably be straight, point it out, and ask for help -- put the elephant on the table.  Key strategy -- be straight:  "I'm confused by blah.  What does it mean?"  They decided to put this issue on the table before going into the presentation.

Joe owned and therefore ran the meeting (though the sales manager noted that Joe made multiple attempts to hand it off to him).  Joe started by stating that he had more questions.  The prospect (a VP of purchasing) immediately gave an unhappy look and communicated his frustration in clear language -- he'd already answered a lot of questions so the situation should be clear; he felt that it was time for Joe to start answering his questions.  Joe stated that he wasn't sure why they had placed the order, paused for just a second, and then he abandoned ship -- and launched into his presentation.

By the way, this is what the salesperson meant when he said that he'd had to throw out his plan.

At the end of the presentation, Joe's Manager did step in to help execute the plan, starting with something like, "I can appreciate that you aren't looking forward to additional questions from us, but Joe is still asking questions because I'm still asking questions.  I'm confused.  Here's what we're seeing... What does this mean?"

The Sales Manager said you could see it happening as plain as day.  Shields were immediately lowered - because Joe's manager was straight and stated the issue in plain language.  Clarification was provided ("we ordered everything from all of our BOM's to do a test of what's been ordered in the past" and "we're not ready to choose our vendors yet.").  From there mutual agreements were made as to a clear path forward that made sense for both parties.  Putting the elephant on the table yielded direct answers and prevented incorrect assumptions, in both directions.

The Sales Manager's observation was that all of this work could have been done (should have been done) in the First call instead of the Third call.  What feedback do you think should he give to this salesperson?

This is a great exercise, so why not invest a few moments to write down your thoughts in your Sales Journal.  If you don't have your Sales Journal with you, no problem, you can write on anything that's handy, even that napkin over there.  And it doesn't have to be pretty, I won't even mind if you use duct-tape when you put your notes into your journal.

In summary, did they really throw out their plan?  Nope, but they did adjust the timing of the execution (questions came after the presentation) and that's OK because the situation should drive the process.  It's rare that events go according to plan, but the act of planning helps you prepare for the inevitable surprises.

The challenges weren't with the design of the plan, they were with the execution of the plan, specifically with Joe's timing, delivery, and style.  Ultimately, both the primary and secondary goals were executed - with the Sales Manager's help - and Joe got a real-time example of what it means to throw the elephant on the table and eat it one bite at a time.  Elephant is the Breakfast of Sales Champions.  Period.

I counseled the Sales Manager to be sure to make this an explicit coaching topic during his next regular follow-up with the employee.  By talking through the experience, the Sales Manager was able to identify 2 specific behaviors that could be added to Joe's weekly "scorecard" which Joe uses as a self-measuring tool (instant feedback on how he's doing in the moment) and which the sales manager uses as a weekly follow-up tool because follow-up is where coaching opportunities are created.

As a side benefit, the sales manager also learned the value of talking through an experience -- it's the next best thing to being there!  And he also learned the value of having a coach -- the coach helps you switch back and forth between "the story" and "what's happening here and now".  Do you have a coach?

Interested in learning more about how to build your own scorecard?  Please feel free to drop me a line at cook.charlie.2009@gmail.com.