Written for the Nova Scotia Business Journal
Whether you're selling, developing clients, or providing solutions, it's fair to say that business development isn't for wimps.
I recently was asked to work with a team of senior business representatives who were having motivation issues because Toronto is a tough market. No surprise, the same is said to my colleagues in Sydney (Australia), London (England), and Bonn (Germany). Tough is the new normal. The wimps can stop reading here.
There is enough negativity and pain in the run of a day to kill a small country. Do you want to be part of that? Recently during a client visit the usually positive CEO tossed the morning paper on the table that had a headline that read: "Markets in Freefall". He continued his depressive dialogue with "It means five more years before I can retire". I said "Whoa, when the markets went up two cents I didn't hear you say that you could retire five years earlier". I also flipped to the business section of the same paper and showed him the column that had the latest economic stats showing Nova Scotia has had five straight months of increased retail sales and, on a per capita basis, we had the top auto sales in the country.
You can't go to a prospective customer and buy into the gloom and doom - it isn't going to motivate someone to buy. I'm not suggesting you ignore the facts but, in a sales role, it is critical that you always look for the positives and combat the negative attitudes that prevail.
The fact is tough times don't last but tough people do. You have to prepare now to be successful mentally, technologically, with increased skills, and productive behaviours.
©2012 Sandler Training Inc. (www.atlantic.sandler.com) is an international sales and management training/consulting firm. For a free copy of Why Salespeople Fail And What To Do About It, call Sandler Training at (902) 468-0787 or e-mail salescareers@sandler.com
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