The complete sales consultant is the dream of every company. It is also often the dream of anyone who works with sales and wants to achieve their goals. Understand the fifth skill of the complete sales consultant: the claw!
In her groundbreaking Ted Talk, Angela Duckworth defines claw as passion and perseverance over a long period of time to achieve certain goals.
She still explains that claw, more than talent and QI, plays a fundamental role in achieving success.
The best sales reps demonstrate their grip on virtually everything they do.
The complete sales consultant is by nature or by practice a courageous sales consultant.
Claw: Nature or Practice?
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Some people are born concentrated, determined, inflexible when faced with adversity and persistent in reaching great goals. The claw was already born with them. But, many people build and strengthen determination over time.
Time and training can build claw
A history of sales success and failure over time defines the mindset of the brave sales consultant, showing that his greatest accomplishments generally take time and perseverance, ensuring that he can recover from even his biggest losses and that these can be used as a powerful fuel on their journey.
A negotiation lost early in the race may have caused frustration, but after years of gripping, losses are viewed as learning.
He details that negotiation for his valuable parts, learns what he can, and moves on.
Claw for small targets
The brave sales consultant repeatedly shows his perseverance in all the negotiations he does.
In the world of B2B sales, companies are rarely expired quickly or easily. Prospects need to be convinced and the talks nurtured.
Information must be gathered, stakeholders have to be educated, and obstacles need to be found and overcome.
Most of the negotiations are successful after a sequence of questions and answers. A repeated process of understanding, presenting, confirming, realigning, and re-presenting. This process requires resistance.
Having a bird’s eye view and focusing on the small victories necessary to win a deal with a client can take weeks, months, and sometimes years. The brave sales representative wins through hard work.
He continues to work. Transform a “no” into a “maybe”, and the “maybe” into a “yes”, detail by detail, stakeholder by stakeholder.
That’s why he earns more business over time compared to his less patient, less persistent, and less courageous teammates.
Claw for moderate objectives
The claw is an internal force, not an external one.
The sales consultant is constantly looking inside and improving his work. He is critical of his personal development month by month, quarter after quarter, and year by year.
Even in tough times, you want to focus on what you can control and what improvements you can make in your own work.
As one of the best representatives on your team, you set more meaningful goals than just the monthly or quarterly sales goal. The sales consultant is targeting promotion and the President’s Club.
Think big and take it one step at a time to reach your long-term goals.
He concentrates on reaching the top of the mountain, then takes direction towards the rock located in front of his nose and places one foot in front of the other.
Claw for big goals
Most people know Abraham Lincoln as the 16th President of the United States and as the one who helped end slavery in that country. But his history is not as well known nor his history of failures before his great achievements as president.
So, I’m going to show you that now:
1816: At age 7 his family was expelled from home. He had to work to help his parents.
1818: His mother passes away.
1831: Failure in business.
1832: He lost his job and wanted to enter law school, but could not.
1833: He borrowed money with a friend to start a business and at the end of the same year he fell into disrepair. He spent the next 17 years of his life paying off the debt.
1835: His girlfriend dies and leaves him with a broken heart.
1836: He had a panic attack and was in bed for six months.
1838: He sought to be a speaker in the state legislature, but was defeated.
1840: Tried to vote, but lost.
1843: Competed in Congress, but lost.
1848: After getting a seat in Congress in 1846, he tried for reelection, but lost.
1849: Tried administrative position in his state, but had no luck.
1854: Competed in the United States Senate, but lost.
1856: He tried to be named as a candidate for the Vice Presidency of his party, but he had less than 100 votes.
1858: He competed in the American Senate again, but lost once more.
The brave sales consultant is the Abraham Lincoln of your sales team.
For a good part of people, failure is the end point. For a sales consultant, it is a temporary state. He views failure as an obstacle on his way to success .
In sales, we lose more than we earn, and the sales consultant is mentally prepared for that.
The sales consultant is mentally tough and that takes him to the point of arrival of sales runs, while others lose strength. To quote Lincoln, “I can walk slowly, but I never walk backward . “
