BOOK EXCERPT Blindspots: The Hidden Killer of Sales Coaching
BY MARK SELLERS CEO, BREAKTHROUGH SALES PERFORMANCE LLC
If you’re a sales leader, you’ve got one of the tough- est jobs in business: the challenge of motivating and inspiring salespeople every day to perform at their highest levels, to accomplish the one thing that most determines their success – achieving quota.
The job would be plenty tough enough if you had to deal only with the typical sales issues – helping your salespeople find new leads, get to the heart of a customer’s needs, make compelling presentations, stand out from the competition – and the all- too-often internal obstacles from your own company. You know, the sales prevention departments.
But you know you have to deal with even more. Your job is largely about dealing with people. And people can be complicated. You’ve prob- ably read or been told that, if you can understand people better, you can be a successful manager and leader. I agree. But there’s one person I’m bet- ting that you don’t understand as well as you need to – and understanding this person is the key to your leader- ship and coaching effectiveness. It’s you. There’s a good chance you don’t know yourself as well as you think. Worse, there’s a good chance that
SELLING TIP Dial in New Business
What do you do when long-time customers suddenly leave their company? Consider them new leads. I ask for their new number and then call to thank them for their past business, wish them well, and find out more about their new company. Clients are usually impressed with this follow-up, and I email them updated sales information. If their job has changed, they’re normally happy to give me a new contact’s name and number. Using this approach, I can make more sales to a new company.
– ADAM E. POIRIER SELLING POWER MARCH 2020 | 27 © 2020 SELLING POWER. CALL 1-800-752-7355 FOR REPRINT PERMISSION.
what you don’t know about yourself – your blindspots – is misleading you and your leadership. That is, you’re not simply unaware; rather, you are convinced that your way and your way of thinking is the right way. So you forge ahead.
If you want to become a greater leader and coach – or if you just want greater results from the people you lead – you’ll have to learn to con- front your blindspots, which is often difficult because they’re hidden in the good stuff, making them hard to recognize. A vice in the virtue. For instance, too much passion can become an unbridled obsession, like a soccer mom or dad who forgets it’s just a game. An ambitious drive to succeed, a virtue, can become an unhealthy desire, a vice. At the heart of great sales leader- ship is emotional connection. Sales- people will give more to their man- agers who emotionally connect with them, just as an athlete will give more
to the coach who emotionally con- nects with her. The problem is, blindspots pre- vent that emotional connection. So performance suffers.
The key to dealing with your blindspots will surprise you. You’ll have to embrace a paradox that, like many paradoxes, doesn’t seem to make any sense. This paradox cuts deep for most people. It’s a paradox about you. It’s counterintuitive. If you’re committed to the journey, and open to the possibilities, great things await. To order the book, click here. To learn more about the book, visit
www.breakthrough-sales.com.
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