Think of all the things we need to deal with in sales:
- Present and future priorities
- Problems and Needs
- Gains and Opportunities
- Relationships and Influencers
- Technical Opinions
- People and Resources
- Money and Budget allocations
- Upcoming Schedules
This list is just the tip of the iceberg, and all these are continuously changing. Salespeople have to be Superman to stay up with it all. We try to counter or satisfy each of these options with a feature or benefit of our own. We have to prove we have a better product or service. We have to prove the value of our product/service and organization. The buyer, of course, naturally resists. There is incredible power in the act of making a decision and when they feel forced, manipulated into a decision, they rebel. It becomes a give and take proposition.
Instead of beating a dead horse to death, why are we not facilitating the effort for the buyer to make a better choice or a decision. This ninth law of organizational structure (Robert Fritz’s book: The Path of Least Resistance for Managers ) states that “The values that dominate an organization will displace other competing, lesser values,” goes both ways. If the dominant values of the organization are self-serving, and manipulative, then what is trivial will become more important than the accomplishment of a greater cause.
Rather than going through the above exercise of countering with features and benefit, why not work on developing a shared vision and aligning values. When people join together in a common cause, each person makes an individual choice to participate. There is tremendous power in the act of making a choice, for it defines our personal resolve and our intended direction. You can’t share a vision when someone is trying to manipulate you into compliance, even for the best of reasons. Shared vision implies choice; we need to choose to join with each other and create a future that matters to both the buyer and the seller.
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