What does that blue ocean look like now?

I’ve worked in sales of one form or another for, well… a while. I’ve seen multiple recessions. I’ve worked on two continents and supported sales people in markets around the globe. And it’s no secret that for many sales people, they’ve found themselves either burnt out and exhausted, or wondering what the heck they’re supposed to do now.

So where does that land us today? We’re nearly at Christmas. In the world of hospitality or travel this is a time of year when we should all be sweating over cocktails and giggles at some fashionable barge by the river. Where I live in Melbourne, Australia the whole country is about to shut down for a well-deserved two month holiday where will will (carefully) reconnect with friends and loved ones who we’ve been missing for most of the year while we’ve been locked down for health and safety.

I’ve had a number of conversations with friends and former colleagues about goal-setting and KPI’s. “This year is a wash, and who knows what’s coming next year…” and so on. At the end of the day, as sales people and business development leaders we know that we need to generate business, but we’re a bit stuck on how to create realistic targets, and even some of the best sales people I know are still a bit hesitant to start talking to clients again.

As we go hurling towards the new year maybe consider that perhaps 2021 is the year we redefine our typical KPI’s. I’m not suggesting we scrap pro-active selling - no no no no no. But I am suggesting that we take the pressure of yield or conversion off our sales people and allow them the flexibility to have meaningful, careful and human connections with their prospects and clients. Set some targets that focus on cleaning up and sharpening your databases - if your CRM was garbage before, I bet it’s an absolute dumpster fire now. Perhaps you consider tapping into your team talent to create and share original content. Find a way to refresh, reconnect, and share. And if you absolutely must create a KPI around connection and activity - be realistic, be fair, and be human. If you put pressure on your sales people to go out, bashing a challenger mindset and forcing some level of commitment from their clients, I’m going to suggest that you’re more likely to damage your organisation’s reputation and that of your sales people.

This is the year to be human and to show up and be supportive and understanding for your clients as humans as well as potential prospects. It’s Melbourne… maybe start with a friendly coffee.

Five ways to find more clients

I’ve walked into any number of organisations whereby the existing team says something along the lines of “We’re very well regarded in the industry, and we work with all the major corporations in this market. I’m sure you won’t find any new opportunities”. My Dad once told my brother that I could “find myself in a room full of horseshit and I’d spend two hours looking for the pony”. I am one of those incessant, growth-mindset, optimists who really does think there is a silver lining or at the very least a decent opportunity in any pile of shit.

But it is an interesting question - how do you walk into an established organisation and an established sales team and still manage to uncover new opportunities? Or, if you ARE one of those established sales people, how do you continue to show value to your organisation by finding more clients?

I’m sure I’m aging myself with this reference, but do you remember that scene in Working Girl? Not the one where she’s commuting on the Staten Island Ferry in a power suit, slouch socks and Reeboks…. no, the scene where she’s reading the newspaper and puts two and two together that there was a business opportunity. Take a leaf out of Melanie’s book - and do some research…. carefully.

I was working for a time at a small start up where I had the freshiest of fresh sales teams who all worked REALLY well together. We would sit together every morning and compare notes on how we found new prospects to connect with. We had split the team by vertical markets which, I will say does make this exercise a bit easier to accomplish - but one of the activities knocked out early in the piece was we pulled a list of every company they had worked with. Then company by company we looked up their competitors to see if we had worked with them. If the answer was “no”, they were added to the prospect list. I ran the same activity for myself when I joined a well-established Travel Management Company and it lead us to a $20M multi-national prospect who wasn’t even recorded in their CRM.

So here are my five tips:

1) Assume there MUST be opportunities you haven’t uncovered yet

2) Clean up your CRM, and ensure you’re contacts are correct

3) Evaluate your existing clients list, the size of the organisation, the industry, their location etc - and check to see if you’re working with their closest competitors

4) Use “Emerging” company lists that are published by ASX etc to identify new prospects

5) That old annoying 80/20 rule… even when you’re really busy with existing prospects, carve out time to make calls to new prospects. Keep adding to the funnel

Using love languages for business

Wait, what? Using the word “love” in a business setting. Yep. That’s right. We know that our customers are more likely to buy from people they like. We know that when we hit a hiccup or a really challenging negotiation that the best way to create a win-win or collaborative negotiation is to listen and empathise with our client. This holds true for our manager-associate relationships as well. We need to find a way to relate to people… so why not boil this down to the most visceral of responses? Enter: Love Languages for business. Some people like to use the phrase “Language of Appreciation”, but at the end of the day…. it all comes down to love.

This is not a new concept, so much so that you can find somewhere in the range of 100 different tests to establish your love language like this one. You can also find some really helpful resources for what to do with that information… applying it to your relationship with a friend, a partner or your child.

Once you’re able to identify your love language and that of someone close to you, it becomes easier to start to understand how to best relate to your colleagues and clients. Or, if you’re a bit self-reflective, you can look back at an interpersonal interaction that went terribly wrong and it will usually boil down to an overlooked or accidentally declined act of love. If you’re sitting there thinking I’m crazy, I’m going to give you an example:

Think about the last work meeting you attended. I’m going to guess there were a few people who were early or at least very one time, and then at least one person who was late. If one of your primary love languages is time, I’m willing to bet you were on time, and it drove you absolutely CRAZY that your colleague was late. So much so, that I bet you can also recall the last three times someone was late to that meeting. If you’re reading this thinking “I don’t understand what the big deal is”, I’m going out on a limb to say that time does NOT fall into your top two love languages and you may even be the person overlooking how important it is to your colleagues that you show up on time.

This is such a simple idea, and such an effective way to connect better with friends, family and colleagues that I highly recommend this to just about anyone who will listen. It’s helped me to hone in on where I made some mistakes early on in my career and it very rarely fails me on connecting with people today.

As a wrap up I’d say, don’t overlook importance of accepting a business-appropriate act of love, or the importance of honouring the human preferences of our colleagues and clients. The grid above should be good to get you started.