"What is needed for you to make a sale?" "I need to be motivated to do so," one participant said.
"You need motivation, you said?"
"Yes."
"Inspiration?"
"Yes."
"Clarity?"
"Yes."
A couple more words were thrown around as I was working with the sales team. "What else do you think you need to make a sale?"
"Good leads," they said. "You need good leads, you need motivation, you need inspiration."
"Are there any moments when you're not motivated, and you still make a sale?"
"Yeah."
"You need to believe in yourself to make the sale," somebody else said.
We need:
- Belief
- Motivation
- Inspiration
- Good leads
What else? A couple more words were thrown around.
Without a warning, I took a pen and threw it at one of the sales reps, who caught the pen. I looked at everybody and said, "What was present for him to catch the pen?"
Somebody said he believed that he could catch it. I looked at him and asked, "Did you have to believe, or did you just see a pen flying at you, and you caught it?"
"I just saw a pen flying at me, and I caught it."
Was motivation present? Inspiration? Self-belief? No.
What I went on to look at with this team was what actually is a prerequisite for action. None of the assessments we usually have:
- Good, bad, right, wrong
- Belief, non-belief
- Motivation, inspiration
I asked him what was present for him to catch the pen. Somebody said, "He acted." Yes, action was present, but none of what we believed before or said before was actually present. In the moment, all that counts is the action.
To ask you again, what do you need to make a sale?
"We need to act," somebody else said.
Exactly. But what kind of actions do you need to take?
"We need to call people and sell to them."
Okay, I get that, but what kind of actions are necessary to do so, calling people?
Somebody else said, "I took my phone and said, 'Taking phone.'"
Then what needs to happen?
- You call
- Dialing button
- Pressing buttons
- Speaking
What kind of speech do I need to make? I went on to call somebody and made a request if they wanted to participate in one of my seminars. They didn't commit in the moment, so I asked them to let me know. I asked, "But when could you let me know, and could I call you again then?"
They said, "Yes, you can call me again by Tuesday next week." I said, "Okay, great, so I'll call you Tuesday next week." They confirmed, and I said, "Great, speak next week," and hung up the phone.
Everybody looked at me. I asked them, "What did I do?"
"You called them, you asked them, and then you put a new date on the calendar for another call."
I can act through my body, but I can act in my speaking as well. I took action by making a request, creating a promise for us to meet again, and committing on both my side and hers to do so. We declared that we would speak next Tuesday again, and I made a request for her to make up her mind until that date. She confirmed the request, so we now have an agreement. There was action in our speaking.
Now, I could have called her, talked about the weather, spoken about her plans for traveling next year, and hung up the phone. That kind of talking wouldn't have produced the same results because it wouldn't make any clear request or create agreements for action, which themselves are actions.
Again, if we strip it down, what needs to happen for us to make a sale is to act. The next question becomes: what kind of actions do we need to take?
That sales team went on to increase sales within the next 2 months by over 20%, not by adding something but by removing ideas about prerequisites for action.
If you strip it down, what needs to happen for you to grow your muscles is simply the action of exercise. Look around in the world at how much talking we have about exercise that isn't the exercise itself. That happens in every domain, be it sales, management, leadership, marketing, education, or training. We talk about the thing more than we act on the thing.
There's always an opportunity to see where ideas become prerequisites for action when, in fact, there might be none.
If you're interested in looking at the performance of your team and doing work that improves it, write to me, and we can discuss if this work is right for your goals.
Stay curious. Life is magical.
Moritz