The analogy of high performance sport for sale and negotiation
The beautiful job of a salesperson
Commercial is one of the most beautiful jobs in the world! I have been training salespeople since 2002, I have been “pure juice” since 1988… and I have also managed them!
The salesperson is apparently independent. He keeps the business alive. He sometimes suffers from his devalued image, in France ... Fortunately, things are changing, very slowly. We were in a culture where the engineer, and, later, the marketer, were better seen than the salesperson, who always has the thankless role of pushing doors!
In family SMEs, the salesperson is often a pillar and the marketing department alone, which in this case is very rewarding and educational.
The salesperson is the first marketer of the company and sometimes an engineer, he advances his company, its research and its products, through the evolving needs of its customers. For his image to evolve, he too must evolve, change. Business requires ethics and know-how, through ever more complex relationships which require more developed know-how.
Today, thanks to social networks, can everyone do business? No, not everyone is this talent. And in this “virtual-relational” world, out of fear, few people like real salespeople, those who dare to approach the customer and generate the fruits of a company's profitability!
This is why there is a great card to play for salespeople, those who love their job, their customer, their product and their company. And especially those who like to learn!
Moreover, successful entrepreneurs are often salespeople! You can have good expertise, without a salesperson, it quickly becomes obsolete.
The skills and talents of the athlete-seller
- Enthusiasm
- Humility: Knowing how to leave your ego in the closet, especially after an important signing
- Self-analysis ability, desire and ability to learn in one's profession
- Set goals for progress. Learn and unlearn every day!
- Always listening ...
- Empathy
- Persuasion and Conviction
- Ability to change
- Ability to surpass oneself
- The mind and pugnacity
Personal development and behavioral change : 80% of the trade
- To be curious
- Develop your agility in the face of more complex and uncertain situations
- Innovate instantly and develop creativity and openness
- Get out of your expert syndrome
- Accept the most difficult times and make it a strength: be optimistic!
Passionate about education and sales, I like to reveal these postures. It is not in the ease that one discovers or increases tenfold his talent. The commercial is the sportsman of the company, his representative for the selections and the matches, friendly or not. He must therefore train and have a trainer!
Getting out of your comfort zone is a manna of possibilities provided you are optimistic, at the beginning it shakes up, it is called change, finally, evolution. Developing your posture, as well as training regularly on the fundamentals of sales and negotiation, is the perfect parallel with sport!
Would the athlete be more adored and respected for his performances, his motivation and his interpersonal skills?
The real difference between the salesperson and the athlete is the lack of training of salespeople and sometimes even the lack of will to improve by thinking they know or by fear ...
The positioning of real sports athletes from the competition
For them, it is abnormal not to be trained, therefore perfectly assumed and say loud and clear that you are being coached. Edgar Grospiron, Olympic champion and speaker, naturally introduced me at the end of his lectures, while I come hidden to coach certain leaders.
The lessons of his coaching, taken from Edgar Grospiron's testimonial: “Nothing equals discipline and work. We do not evolve easily. I have the feeling to find a way of working that looks like the one I had when I was running. At the Top of the Poster it's high level! "
And me, what I liked about this support is that I could have the requirements of a trainer, he trusted me!
If all the leaders and managers trained communicate it to their team, it has a direct exemplary impact!
In the United States it is not a fashion to be coached, it is an ambition, a duty, a humility, a means, a normality.
When you have talent, in the world of performance, this is where you have to start training and therefore unlearn ...
Salespeople in training
My observations of salespeople in training: two ways of seeing things for them: "I was wrong for 10 years because I did not apply this kind of principle, so easier to be in denial" or "what an opportunity, I will be able to sell better and more, and therefore earn more and bring in more ”.
When I see a salesperson who exclaims during the training "I realized but I already knew it, or I will try, or it does not apply to me because I am not the same", I him say "we are not in the" knowledge ", rather in the movement". Knowing what to do and what not to do in the field is tantamount to resistance to change and a lack of perspective on learning to develop the profession of salesperson. It is not knowledge, it is perpetual personal development and fundamentals, always, and as in sport.
Being flexible and open to all feedback, to facilitate change, better evolution, and the manager evolves by helping others to evolve, what a great job that of manager-coach, the coach of his teams!
The manager-coach and his coachee: a partnership
The salesperson and the manager must walk together in a “manager-coach” approach. This support disregards its business results and profitability. The coach has the ability to adapt to all his players in the sales field,
History of live sales coaching ...
As of this writing, a client is calling me, I trained their salespeople in negotiation two weeks ago. At the time, this upset certain well-established beliefs. Two weeks later: “So how is it going?”, “We are already applying and with results and thanks to your intensive training, we have already signed several contracts in a very profitable way, which is great in your pedagogy is that You train us so much during the training module, that at the end of it, we are really competent and motivated to act. We transformed and applied it within two days of your intervention ”.
My educational vision: the result is a consequence of an approach: supporting people, their personal development, their motivation, and therefore their development in their profession.
This coach posture is more delicate than the usual manager or trainer posture, because you act in movement and transformation. The posture requires both agility, pedagogy, listening, firmness or assertiveness, and letting go! The price of glory is when you can observe and measure results, which is a consequence and never a goal!
In sport, after the match, the players and the coach debrief, listen, exchange, this moment is very important. Take advantage of every moment of coaching, for example after a training or a workshop. The wrong question would be, "So was the training okay?" ". Even if the answer is “great”, the learner does not formalize his new commitments, whether he has written them down or thought about them. The one who goes into critical denial and therefore leaves in flight. You are a manager-coach, so make them talk about themselves, their experience, their awareness, play down and above all their decisions and commitments!
In summary : change and evolve your management, your salespeople will evolve and will indeed be managed!
As in sport, you will be criticized, and the day you win with your team, everyone will be inspired by you, as in 1998 after the victory of the France team!
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