How Do You Define “Boldness” for Salespeople?
It was just over a year ago when McGraw-Hill released my book, Be Bold and Win the Sale. But that was not the original title. The working title was “Chasing Easy”.
For those of you who have read Be Bold and Win the Sale you know that I talk at great length about comfort addictions. I often equate comfort addiction with “chasing easy.”
Chasing easy is the malady. Boldness is the remedy.
Sadly, far too many people hear the word “bold” and instantly think obnoxious. There is an inherent alarm in the word.
Let me be very, very clear on this point. Boldness is NOT obnoxious bravado, or flashy dialogue, or stealthy manipulation. I reject any such notion as being counter to the core of the message.
I define boldness this way: Doing the right thing in the face of discomfort.
You see, every moment of discomfort arrives with a corollary moment of decision. And the quality of those decisions make all the difference in our sales approach and even in our lives.
Boldness is not about doing the HARD thing. Boldness is about doing the RIGHT thing.
For example, suppose you are deep into discussions with a customer and you believe you are about to land this sale.
Just when you think you have this one in the bag the customer says, “This is quite a bit more than we were planning on spending. We need to go back and ‘crunch the numbers’.”
As a salesperson, you believe that all the number-crunching in the world will not change the situation. You have the best possible solution available and you offer it at a fair price.
On the other hand, you don’t want to show disrespect toward a reasonable sounding request.
Do you press onward or do you give in? Do you challenge the objection or do you let the customer walk so they can “think about it”?
Misinterpreting the word “bold” would cause many to take a very aggressive approach in this situation. “Come on. You know the price is right, you know we have the best solution, and you know that ultimately you’re going to go with us. Just do it already.”
Um, hate to break it to you but you just put the entire sale in jeopardy.
Option two is to say, “I understand – it’s a big decision. Take all the time you need.” Guess what. Your sale is also in jeopardy.
But what if you redefine “boldness” as “serving the customer’s best interests”. And what if you recognized that your customer needed you to politely push back in the service of their own best interests?
Your response might be, “I get that it’s a lot of money and I know that makes it tougher. But I can save you a lot of headache here. I’ve done all the research for you. There is no better option available at this price. You simply cannot solve your problem adequately with any other solution. The sooner you make your decision the sooner we can solve your problem and improve your situation. Make sense”?
Remember, boldness is not about doing the HARD thing; it’s about doing the RIGHT thing – for you, for your company, and for your customer.
And that’s when you get the chance to change someone’s world.
