What Got You Here
Won’t Get You There…in Sales!
What Got You Here Won't Get You There is a NYT bestseller, WSJ #1 business book and award winning Business Book of the Year – and it’s based upon the simple premise that while leadership success does happen because of certain behaviors, it often occurs in spite of other behaviors. What Got You Here resonates with so many readers in the management development community because it builds upon the sound principles of Peter Drucker – in that sometimes we need to learn not what to do, but what to stop doing…in order to grow and develop.
There is no more timely message for those in sales!
The game is changing again… In 1987 Larry Wilson wrote in his best seller, Changing the Game, that “our economy, and therefore our customers are going through change like we’ve never seen before”, and that the game of selling needed to change to accommodate major shifts in “number of decision makers…length of time it takes…increase in random events…demand for custom solutions…demand for longer term relationships…and the death of the product solution”. Now well into the information age, the Harvard Business Review reports that with an “acceleration of trends established over the past several years, the selling context is changed…buyers are behaving differently”.
The marketplace is spring-loaded for tension… Soaring customer expectations and crashing baseline service offerings complete a recipe for disaster. Airlines have pulled food service and charge for baggage…retail has tightened policy across the board…and myriad organizations now charging for what they once “included”. Customers want more, and organizations provide less just to survive.
The remedy seems to be high-tech / no-touch… How have most organizations responded to the challenge? Unfortunately, by trying to engineer the human being out of the equation. I know you can think of countless examples of companies that now try to manage the customer/company interface – technologically, rather than biologically! Instead of providing you interaction with a living, breathing human being, many now entice you (and some even force you) to print your own documentation, check in at automated kiosks, transfer funds electronically, “send away” for credits, and spend an eternity in automated phone hell – all in the name of some twisted version of allegedly “serving” you better. Organizations are betting that if they can just remove human unpredictability from customer interactions that we will all be happier and healthier (and cheaper to deal with, come on now!).
What’s wrong with this picture… Where does this story hurt? We can tell you from having asked thousands of sales and service workshop participants to chart the satisfying and dissatisfying “moments” they’ve experienced as customers – that in nine out of ten cases, the satisfying or dissatisfying variable was the person they interacted with! Whether recounting a surgical procedure, buying a car, or a business-to-business sale, they never spoke of the surgeon’s technique…it was the bedside manner that left them happy. It wasn’t the vehicle that “surprised and delighted” them, it was the caring of the consultant. It wasn’t a drug’s ingredients that engendered loyalty; it was the human interface with the pharmaceutical rep. The human being (you) is what makes or breaks the experience.
The game has changed again, the marketplace is tense,
high-tech/no-touch doesn’t work, the human interface
is still the differentiator – what to do?
- Understand that what got you here won’t get you there – the stock answers of 1987, or even 2007, won’t apply!
- Accept that the human interface still matters – no one has figured out how to completely replace us (nor will they) through technology.
- Enter the era of empathy – the connection of understanding, being aware of or sensitive to, and even vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts and experience of another…is what will get you there in sales.
- Explore the possibility that people get in their own way as often as not. Many times the shortest route to more effective relationships lies not in the steps to establishing the empathic connection – but in simply not breaking the connection that exists!
- Assess your own interpersonal habits…what should you learn to stop when interacting with your customers?
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There…in Sales Either! is Availiable Now!
Don Brown can be reached at dbrown@situational.net .
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