Mindful Approach

Video: A More Mindful Approach to Handling Objections

Objections can derail even the best opportunity and cause incredible stress for buyers and sellers. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is a more mindful approach, based on three simple steps, that can eliminate stress for buyer and seller and result in stronger, more productive relationships.

During this session, will discuss:

  • Why hearing objections is actually a positive sign for your opportunity

  • Why objections create stress for buyers and sellers

  • Three steps you can take to handle objections in a more mindful and effective way.

Handling buyer objections doesn’t need to derail your sales opportunity. These three proven steps can help you better address any objection from any buyer.

Click here to sign up complementary access to our online handling objections program.

Team Learning and Practice

Is Continuous Learning the Secret to Sales Excellence?

For too long, the sales profession has viewed learning as an event. We conduct sales training workshops to help people handle objections more effectively. We deliver training classes on the latest product release or a prospecting technique. We serve up a lunch and learn to update our team on one of our competitors.

While none of these activities is inherently bad, training events often ignore the fundamental principles of learning, especially as it relates to skill development. Unfortunately, participants in sales training events typically forget 80% of what they learned within the first 30 days after training. How big an issue is this? A Google search of the phrase “sales training doesn’t work” returns 241M results in just .7 seconds! As a result, sales teams miss out on the opportunity to gain a sustainable competitive advantage through continuous, incremental improvement.

The Learning Sales Organization

If you want a real, sustainable, competitive advantage for your sales team, don’t default to the antiquated model of trying to “teach” them new skills in training events. Instead, create an organization that promotes continuous learning and is always improving – one that integrates learning into the normal work cadence. In their 1977 book, The Learning Company: A Strategy for Sustainable Development, Pedler, Burgogyne, and Boydell define the continuous learning organization as “a company that facilitates the learning of its members and continuously transforms itself.”

This concept was later popularized in Peter Senge’s book, The Fifth Discipline. In that book, he proposed the following five disciplines of a continuous learning organization:

1. Systems Thinking

2. Personal Mastery

3. Mental Models

4. Shared Vision

5. Team Learning

Let’s take a quick look at a few practical ways we can apply these concepts to sales.

Systems Thinking, Mental Models & Shared Vision

If we want to create a continuously learning sales organization, we must abandon the idea that selling is an innate talent or that customer engagement is an art form in which any approach is valid so long as the outcome is a sale. Systems thinking recognizes the complexity and interdependence between the sales interaction and the ability of the rest of the organization to deliver customer satisfaction. For this reason, customer interaction cannot be left to the whims of individual salespeople.

Instead, clear mental models must define how the continuous learning organization will engage with customers and one another to deliver exceptional service to customers and optimize sales performance. Moreover, these models must be part of a shared vision that everyone on the team owns. It won’t be adopted if individuals or teams don’t buy-in to the model.

Personal Mastery & Team Learning

Continuous learning sales organizations must encourage personal mastery while recognizing the necessity of team learning to achieve this end. Imagine a group of dedicated football players, each committed to mastering his position. Now suppose that the expectation would be that each person would achieve excellence WITHOUT practicing with others on the team. The concept is so absurd it doesn’t even seem possible. Yet, many sales teams take this same approach.

Since selling is interpersonal interaction, organizations must leverage team learning and practice to facilitate continuous improvement and personal mastery. Without this interaction and feedback, no person can achieve optimum effectiveness, and the team’s performance will suffer. However, team learning can accelerate everyone’s proficiency and provide a competitive advantage.

Getting Started

Becoming a learning sales organization may appear an overwhelming project, however three simple steps can help put your company on the path to continuous learning and sales excellence:

1.   Select your selling and coaching models — Establish criteria for each and identify or develop models that meet your criteria, as these will be the foundation for your ongoing learning.

2.   Integrate tools — Don’t implement CRM solutions or other sales effectiveness tools unless/until you have a model for the ideal selling behavior. When you do, integrate the model into the tools so that they support adoption of these key behaviors and bring real value to your sellers, coaches, and customers.

3.   Build a learning library — While training events may still be necessary, recognize the incremental nature of personal development and provide a library of reinforcement and refresh learning and practices that can be easily referenced and leveraged as learning opportunities are identified.

Want to talk more about creating your own learning sales organization? You can connect with us and share your thoughts here. 

Axiom provides a unique alternative to traditional sales training. Unlike traditional sales training events, we embed our methodology into your sales cadence, delivering dramatically better sales results. To learn more about how our Kinetics Sales Effectiveness Platform helps sales teams integrate continuous learning into their sales motions, please visit us at www.axiomsaleskinetics.com/kinetics-platform.