eBusiness Weekly
Robert Gonye
I had the opportunity of attending and participate in a business growth seminar over the past weekend for serious professionals and business owners.
Interesting to note was that 2021 for most businesses has started with a lot of mixed feelings.
A novelty selection of master class students attributed their success to a very fundamental business concept.
It is one thing to fully understand and know your product/ service. It’s another to then sell your product or service offering.
The two should never be merged or confused as their effect can be detrimental to your business.
This then forms the basis of our discussion this Friday morning as you realign your sales processes for better performance a subject termed master your business.
Mastering your business is what sets any novice salesperson from a true sales leader. It’s the difference between a high performer from a none performer or the salesperson who is always closing more sales prospects.
The same is attributed to those who excel exceedingly in their careers while others just drift business mastery! A subject matter which is loosely thrown around in work meetings and business gatherings.
Allow me to elaborate more.
Put simply, business mastery (intelligence) is when you make decisions that don’t just benefit your company today, but also months or even years in the future.
It means you can think strategically for present and future success. It becomes a strategic outlook as a tool for business decision-making.
Sales people as a must, always need to have and equip themselves with Business Mastery as a battle tool as it will make for better internal collaboration. In today’s global world, you’ve got to do your job well today, while considering how to benefit your company in the future.
For example, if you close new business by regularly offering heavy discounts, you might hit your sales number and impress your manager, but it puts your finance department in a difficult position.
If they want to learn about product features, service packages, and business benefits, your clients can visit your website.
What they need from you are guidance and assistance. So, as technology infiltrates more of the selling process, salespeople need to be consultative.
To be consultative, you must understand your prospect’s business from their perspective.
You have to understand how it solves the pain points of everyone involved in the buying decision.
Many salespeople take a “one-step approach” to selling. They are good at reacting and responding to day-to-day tasks and challenges but struggle to look or act beyond the immediate scope of their job.
This is fine if you are a salesperson who wants to stay in your role forever, but to avoid being branded; you need to move past a reactive approach to selling and be proactive.
Another example would be if you often receive the objection, “You have said your customer service team responds to client issues within three days, but we are looking for a company offering same-day issue resolution,” find out what your customer service team is already doing to address this objection, and bring your ideas and strategies to the conversation.
Make sure to do this in a positive, collaborative way.
If you are busy burning bridges with other departments, you will make enemies instead of allies, and your good ideas will be worth very little.
Business mastery key elements that help us fully grasp business issues and opportunities as a way of strengthening our business include vision and discipline, emotional intelligence, experience, assessment, and learning organisational processes.
Assessment
Be able to look at a business situation and easily identify what factors are at play and how each fits into the bigger picture.
For example, if you are experiencing a high customer churn rate, the knee-jerk response is to solve how this issue affects you and your commission.
That’s a start but also identifies when churn increased and what might have contributed to the rise.
Typical contributions to that could have been a recent price structure change which will require a profile of customers to avoid a disconnect. Fix it before it fixes you and the entire organisation.
Have a long-term vision
and discipline
I know you have daily goals and quarterly numbers. Always understand and consider the organisation’s yearly and long-term goals, and align your actions and behaviours to support those goals.
If your company’s goal is to attract a smaller group of more qualified, high-end customers, align your goals.
No use being in sales if you not also investing in your mental bank through reading books about sales, finding a mentor experienced in selling, and engaging your sales organisation’s leadership for something as small as coffee to learn.
IQ versus emotional intelligence
Business Mastery is not only about meeting your own needs, but meeting the needs of your stakeholders, internal and external clients which include your boss and your company as well.
Don’t ungratefully shovel work to them or ignore their requests for assistance.
Engage with administrative staff regularly, understand their goals, and help them achieve those goals.
Intelligence is key however emotions create the balance.
Experience
Experience isn’t just about . . . well, experiencing things. It’s about learning from each experience and translating those lessons into concrete steps forward in your career to know the to do and what not to-dos.
Learn from all experiences as they will drive the organisation going forward.
Miss your target this month? Ask those who did what they did and what you need to improve on and then execute, execute, execute.
Have open discussions with your manager and share experiences so that they know you are making positive steps to improve your growth.
Learning organisational processes
When you as a salesperson understand the systems that make a business run, the rules that govern them, and the work they can do to influence those processes — that is the pinnacle of business mastery.
Instead of worrying about how you will make a quota, step back, work with sales leadership to understand the decision and develop a plan for how you’ll influence those business decisions for the better.
We won’t be able to exhaust this subject today. Expect a follow-up in the next article and as always your views and comments are most appreciated.
Disclaimer: The views given herein are solely for information purposes; they are guidelines and suggestions and are not guaranteed to work in any particular way.
Robert Gonye is a business growth expert and influencer. He writes in his capacity. Comments and views: [email protected]
