Selling in a Time of Corona – S2E3 – The Sequel is Never as Good – Sales Lockdown #2

Creative intro ( satirical)

Meditation leader:     Sit or lie in a comfortable position. Allow yourself to simply relax as you take a
nice deep breath in, and breathe out  - all the bullshit of the day. Take another deep breath, Feel your shoulders, just chilling the f#%@k out.  Letting go. Taking another deep breath in. Imagine breathing in white light. Let all the f#%@king nonsense from the external world drift the f#%@k out of your consciousness, far, far, away.

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             That intro is going to set the tone for this podcast. If that kind of inner peace music does it for you, then by all means, go make a decaf chai latte, polish your wind chimes in your organic wicker chair and feel free to delete this podcast before you relax in your hemp activewear.

Now, if you're still listening, then let's discuss for real what's going on right now and what we can do about it.

There was a huge reaction recently to my LinkedIn post, which simply said this:

‘If I see one more trite Pollyanna piece about how the sun will come out tomorrow after Lockdown #2, I'll need a new screen.
Nobody went to pandemic school. Can we please acknowledge the truth - it's not fun for a lot of people, especially certain businesses.
We do have to persevere though - adding 'behind target' to the lists of angst will not help. Please reach out to clients, especially those that need you and don't withdraw activity just because it's hard’

I think it resonated because you are likely to be in Melbourne, Sydney, the US, Singapore, UK or Israel and are either locked down again or may very well be very soon.

That is why the ‘happy pants, the world is a wonderful place, keep calm platitude junkies and breathe brigade’ pisses me off so much.

Here are a few of the examples from these mouth breathers, word for word off LinkedIn – you might need a drink for this:

‘Stories do not have inherent meaning, we have to give the story the meaning and the same thing applies to our lives.’

‘Life is the story that you tell yourself. That’s been building for a long time. But what we don’t talk about is what happens when the story goes wrong? ‘

‘Everybody goes through these breaches, these chutes. I call them ‘life quakes’. The act of getting unstuck, of getting back on track.’

I’m sure that’s hugely valuable to someone struggling to pay a mortgage, home schooling right now, or keeping kids in their preferred school whilst trying to meet next quarter’s budget.

The truth is Lockdowns are knocking people and businesses around and that includes a lot of people who sell things for a living.

Selling is like shaving, if you don’t do it every day, you begin to look homeless. And since waxing salons shut down, that applies to men and women.

In Series one, Episode 2 of this podcast, Sales in Lockdown, I discussed a number of ways to keep being yourself as you navigate the sales world like a sailor with half a yacht missing.

We now need to reassess again where we’re at and what we can do.

Here’s my take:

Governments are winging it – former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said this week that they ran war game exercises on a pandemic response when she was in politics. How long did they devote to these critical exercises? One day. I’ve spent longer than that coaching leaders to present at a boring international conference on the Critical Importance of Actuaries and it took me a week just to toilet train my dog – and she’s smart.

Managers are winging it – which direction should they head, is the company safe, do they keep people, hire people, let them go, jump ship, tough it out or go easy on people – these are not binary decisions.

Clients are winging it – do they keep their jobs, how do they deliver value back to the business, is their industry ok or not, do they go for innovative solutions or stick with incumbents, how do they plan for the next round of contract renewals, how will they deliver with cash flow restrictions?

So, this can all be summed up with ‘We’re blindfolded, we don’t know if we’re going in the right direction and if you’re feeling a little anxious, please know…so is everyone’

Even regional tourist operators who were begging for customers a month ago are now putting up social media posts saying ‘Stay the absolute <beep> away.’

Before we pivot, innovate, change tack, disrupt, apply blue sky thinking, realign – excuse me while I wipe this fluff from my mouth <blow> – fur ball, let’s bring this right back to the raw, core fundamentals of business.

Why? Because we still have to keep selling and winning clients. There just is no alternative other than giving up – and that is what some people are already feeling. Please don’t.

Let’s go right back to Core Business Principle #1: The purpose of business is to create a customer. The legendary Peter Drucker said that, Do you know when? 1954. The year Eisenhower was US President, Robert Menzies was Prime Minister and Elvis Presley began his music career.

It sounds more obvious than the mask half falling off your face.

But there are still a lot of companies grimly holding on to the notion that their business exists for other purposes such as:

Promulgating their particular special sauce of a solution

Promoting the way they want to sell, rather than how the client wants to buy.

Making decisions that are likely to benefit their own company, not the client’s.

News flash: In the middle of Covid-19, the client does not exist to help you survive. You exist to help them survive and thrive. Period.

The wonderful David Maister of Trusted Advisor fame said two things never more important than now, in the time of Corona.

1. There is an old saying: ’It is amazing what you can achieve if you are not wedded to who gets the credit’ and,

 

2. It is ironic that a business in which the serving of clients depends so heavily on interpersonal psychology, should be peopled with those who believe in the exclusive power of technical mastery.

 

So, with Drucker and Maister in mind, here are some gobsmacking real examples of what I’ve heard from some salespeople in the trenches in the past few months alone.

‘Hey, the client has pulled out – they asked us to recalibrate our solution but I didn’t want to reduce the scope and blow my commission’

‘The client asked if we could do a shorter 12-month contract because of Covid 19 and partner in the interim with their existing supplier, who is our competition. I hate those bastards. So, we said ‘no’.

‘The client is resisting buying our optimal solution which we know is better for them. I’m not selling them a cut down version – it’s against my values.’

‘Jeff is not pulling his weight right now, and the client is pissed off, but let’s cut Jeff some slack because we’re all working from home, and it’s a bit tricky.’

‘The client said its budget has been cut, so we just moved on – no point negotiating if they’re going to play hardball, especially after all we’ve done for them.’

And finally…my favourite:

‘I’ve presented our solution to the client’s team three times already… they’re just not listening to us.’

How many more clues do people want?

Here’s a mantra for you : Ommm…it’s not about you…Ommm..it’s not about you.

So, if you’d like to self-indulge, please, feel free to run a hot bath, light a candle filled with essential oils and listen to the sound of whales gently humping in the ocean.

If you’d like to win some business however, keep talking to clients every hour, every day, regardless of the noise and try, really try to give them what they want.

Stay safe. Stay positive

Remember, your ears are safe, I dipped the microphone in a sumptuous mixture of sandalwood and vanilla during this entire podcast.

Take care of yourselves…till next time.