We have been teaching our girls that “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.” As managers and leaders, we are given an interesting mix of realities in our days. How many fits have we had to embrace? OK, so let’s look the landscape of our job…a retail store that has to be run (and the variables) with a team (and their variables) and a flow of customers (and their variables) show up and according to Forrest Gump, “life is like a box of chocolates”, so…insert fit here?
Life is unscripted. The very best we can do is to control our controllables and have a base to make decisions. We have to adapt to what we are given. This is the very nature of sales. We have our widget and a customer shows up for whatever reason that may be driving them and we are tasked with selling a solution. That is our job. But we will not have the script. So we improvise.
Improvisation is our next moment in the art of selling. How do we or, maybe, how well do we improvise based on what we are given?
A customer shows up and they bring with them a potential new opportunity, an old problem, a friend who needs assistance and maybe even a joy for a new toy. We stand ready for anything given, right? What if the customer brings something we are not prepared to deliver…what then? You see, a sale occurs when we ensure we have a base of information (product knowledge), listen to and embrace the context of the situation (discovery) and then share a solution (close). We surround that with other things which promote trust, understanding, comfort, ease and relationships. Those are the variables dependant on how we, as sales reps respond to what we are given.
Look at it this way. We can all agree on the steps in selling. They just are what they are. If you are in sales, you follow some sort of process and it doesn’t matter what your widget may be, the process is the process. The differentiator is how you pay attention to the process with each unique customer scenario. To quantify this, let’s say the process is 90% of the sale and the 10% factor is how you apply it…that is what differentiates ‘good from great’. The 90% is formulaically static and the 10% is improvisationally dynamic. Those probably are not words, so go with me. The 90% is what is everyone needs…it’s the process. The 10% is what is needed by that person in that situation at that time.
So what to do?
LEARN. A big ‘aha’ is that improvisation is impossible without a library of knowledge. You cannot think on the fly without some type of baseline. It is a mindset that suggests, “No matter whatever I may face or will be given, I hold these two or three or more things to be true in every case.” This type of foundation allows for more freedom to adapt and be flexible. Great risk occurs if you do not have the basics.
LISTEN. Listen to what is being offered, to what is being said, to what is being shared. Without this component, you cannot link the foundation (knowledge) to the context (reality). We cannot control the unknown, only how we respond to it. Listening allows for awareness and understanding. This is an incredibly important aspect in the art of selling. It shows itself in almost all of the aspects surrounding the science or process in selling.
LIVE. I’ll be cheesy for a moment. ”Live in the moment”. Right, wrong, indifferent, challenged, without the answer, whatever…you have to be present. Improvisation does imply action. The definition by Wikipedia suggests Improvisation is a state of being and creating action without pre-planning. You have to be engaged with all that is around you despite possibly not having all the data necessary to make a decision.
The science of sales does not have to be complicated. The art can be. It depends. It depends on the customer, their context and the way we then embrace both. We do have to think on our feet which can be challenging. The science is easy. The art is…well, not. We have to improvise.
My son is a Marine. And while he is no longer active, in boot camp, he learned the unofficial motto of the Marines which suggests that a Marine improvises, adapts and overcomes. Too harsh? I mean it is sales, right? We are not taking the hill. Is the intention really that different? What is your sales goal today? You may need to adapt a strategy to meet that goal…or take the hill.
Cheers