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ART OF SALES 2, 5.05 (V) The Power of Feedback

5.05 (V) The Power of Feedback

How do you know if you're performing in your sales efforts? In other words, how do you get performance feedback? How do you know where your strengths and weaknesses lie? You need another sales tool. Getting performance feedback is a necessity. Think of it this way, all elite athletes have multiple coaches. An elite athlete might have a stretching coach, a nutritionist, even a sleep coach. What do these people do? Well, think about it. They fine tune all aspects of that athlete's performance. Well, guess what? We salespeople, we are elite athletes too. Just think about all the skills and disciplines we've covered in this specialization. High performance selling is layer upon layer of knowledge, skill, and discipline. So we need a feedback tool to help us constantly improve. Here's what it looks like, I'm going to use our running high impact sales meetings as an example. We walk out of a team selling situation, and we get in a car, and you say to me, "Craig, what's one thing you think you did well?" And I say, "Well, you had asked me to be prepared for that meeting and I think I was very prepared. I had all the materials and everything ready to go." And you say, "Great, here's one thing I think you did well. What I thought you did well was ask really good impact questions. I thought there were a couple of very good impact questions in there and I love that you did that. And I would encourage you to do that again." And then you say to me, "Craig, in that meeting just now, what's one thing you would do differently?" And I say, "What I would do differently is, I thought the opening wasn't very good. We just sort of got going and I never really did my purpose benefit check it wasn't crisp." And you say, "Great, here's one thing I think you should do differently. What I want you to do differently is actually close more strongly too. You just stood up and said thank you because we were out of time. You should have begun closing before the time was out and done the five aspects of a crisp close. I want you to think about doing that differently next time. Does that make sense?" And I say to you, "Yup." What you just saw here is a very powerful sales tool. It's a feedback model that has four parts. You, as my coach, asked me one thing I think I did well and I respond. And then you respond with what you think I did well. And then, you asked me what I would do differently. And finally, you respond with one thing that you would like me to do differently. The 'did wells', the left column here, builds confidence. And the 'do differentlys', the right column, build skill. This is absolutely critical and it's the same type of model that coaches use across every business, to coach performance, and give feedback. So now that you have this tool, try to use this every chance you get. Asked a friend to watch you present or execute your sales conversation and then give you feedback. If you're in a team selling situation, as soon as you walk out of that team selling situation, give each other feedback using the model. You can even ask a prospect to give you feedback using this model. This is what elite athletes do, and you are an elite athlete, called a salesperson.


5.05 (V) The Power of Feedback

How do you know if you're performing in your sales efforts? In other words, how do you get performance feedback? How do you know where your strengths and weaknesses lie? You need another sales tool. Getting performance feedback is a necessity. Think of it this way, all elite athletes have multiple coaches. An elite athlete might have a stretching coach, a nutritionist, even a sleep coach. What do these people do? Well, think about it. They fine tune all aspects of that athlete's performance. Well, guess what? We salespeople, we are elite athletes too. Just think about all the skills and disciplines we've covered in this specialization. High performance selling is layer upon layer of knowledge, skill, and discipline. So we need a feedback tool to help us constantly improve. Here's what it looks like, I'm going to use our running high impact sales meetings as an example. We walk out of a team selling situation, and we get in a car, and you say to me, "Craig, what's one thing you think you did well?" And I say, "Well, you had asked me to be prepared for that meeting and I think I was very prepared. I had all the materials and everything ready to go." And you say, "Great, here's one thing I think you did well. What I thought you did well was ask really good impact questions. I thought there were a couple of very good impact questions in there and I love that you did that. And I would encourage you to do that again." And then you say to me, "Craig, in that meeting just now, what's one thing you would do differently?" And I say, "What I would do differently is, I thought the opening wasn't very good. We just sort of got going and I never really did my purpose benefit check it wasn't crisp." And you say, "Great, here's one thing I think you should do differently. What I want you to do differently is actually close more strongly too. You just stood up and said thank you because we were out of time. You should have begun closing before the time was out and done the five aspects of a crisp close. I want you to think about doing that differently next time. Does that make sense?" And I say to you, "Yup." What you just saw here is a very powerful sales tool. It's a feedback model that has four parts. You, as my coach, asked me one thing I think I did well and I respond. And then you respond with what you think I did well. And then, you asked me what I would do differently. And finally, you respond with one thing that you would like me to do differently. The 'did wells', the left column here, builds confidence. And the 'do differentlys', the right column, build skill. This is absolutely critical and it's the same type of model that coaches use across every business, to coach performance, and give feedback. So now that you have this tool, try to use this every chance you get. Asked a friend to watch you present or execute your sales conversation and then give you feedback. If you're in a team selling situation, as soon as you walk out of that team selling situation, give each other feedback using the model. You can even ask a prospect to give you feedback using this model. This is what elite athletes do, and you are an elite athlete, called a salesperson.