Does It Serve You?

Hey, Scott from The Sales Mastermind here. Today’s edition only takes 3 minutes.

“There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth”.”

Robert Evans.

Storytime

I coach several freshly promoted “Team Leaders”.

All lead a small team and hold an individual target.

Three are struggling with negativity from team members.

While it looks different for each leader, and whether you're a leader or a seller yourself, the lessons are the same.

In one case, the complaining is about lead volume. And because this company is entirely inbound, the team leader can’t simply reply, “go book meetings yourself”.

In another team, it is the exact opposite. An outbound, data-led company has measured that a certain seller needs 44 self-generated meetings per month. 44 is challenging but achievable.

Another team is moaning that rising interest rates are making it harder to close deals than in previous months.

In all three cases above, I suggested the team leads ask the same question:

Does it serve you?

The Question

For each of the above: lack of leads, 44 outbound meetings, and interest rates. They might all be factually accurate. In fact, they probably are factually accurate:

• There are fewer leads than last month
• 44 is a big number
• Interest rates have gone up

So each team leader is asking a variant of "Does it serve you?"

For example:

“Does it serve you to focus on lower lead numbers?”

Even if it is true, lower lead numbers don’t mean fewer qualified leads, fewer actual buyers, or that you can’t still smash your monthly goal out of the water. It just means the leads are down.

Or

“Does it serve you to focus on interest rates?”

Even though buyers are still spending and there's still a strong business case for our customers, especially since over 112 buyers purchased after the rate rise.

The idea is that if a fact doesn't serve you as a seller, reframe it or refocus on something that does.

Momentum

Selling is a momentum game.

Every elite seller knows that when they’re on a roll, the good times keep coming, and when they’re in a slump, it compounds downwards.

Because, depending on how a seller perceives their momentum, they show up differently, sell differently, and the outcome often reflects their perception.

Perception isn't the only factor in sales; macroeconomic trends and micro priority shifts matter, but how a seller is experiencing momentum has an outsized influence on their sales results.

Practical Next Step

Words are great, but sellers need proof that refocusing works.

And if nothing changes, then nothing changes.

Therefore, we decided on two hyper-actionable suggestions for the team leaders:

1. Getting a Win
2. Shrink The Goal

Getting a Win

Because sales is a momentum game, to change perception, we need something to hook onto.

For example, with sellers complaining about interest rates, we decided to focus on getting the team's first sale early in the day.

The team leader starts every day by deciding whom he'll focus on for that first deal, rotating focus each day.

He never tells a rep they are the focus; instead, he tells the team they can obsess about interest rates or their next deal. Then he uses the first sale of the day as proof of momentum.

And very quickly one sale becomes two, becomes three, and the team forgets all about interest rates.

Shrink the Goal

Another technique is to shrink the target into a much more manageable, actionable number.

Using the example where the seller needed 44 outbound meetings.

Instead of focusing on 44, the team lead worked with the seller to focus on two daily Cold-Calling blocks, with a goal of 5 conversations or one meeting booked in each, whichever came first.

This meant the seller is now smiling and dialling for two sessions every day, and as soon as they book one meeting or speak to five relevant prospects (i.e., not wrong numbers or receptionists), they can stop, knowing they were successful.

If they fail to book a meeting or speak to five people, the count resets during the next cold-calling block.

Are you struggling with negativity? Try to Get a Win and build momentum, or shrink the goal into something more manageable.

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