If you’re not getting the results you want, it’s time for sales innovation.
Business is unpredictable and uber-fast-paced. Everyone is overloaded with work. The day of the week (or weekend) doesn’t matter much anymore. We can be on calls anyplace around the globe at any hour.
Much is not only unpredictable, but complicated. We get mixed messages. Clients tell us deals will close, and then delay the launch. Prospects tell us they’re decision-makers, even when they’re not. We focus on the tasks to complete and emails to send, and we lose sight of our big-picture goals. We struggle to find time for ourselves, our friends, and our families.
How do we change things up and get off the hamster wheel? First, we must give up the way we’ve always worked. Give up what we know to make room for sales innovation—new ideas, new processes, new inventions, new everything. Just as we ditched our legacy software, we must ditch our legacy history, and the legacy processes that are stalling our growth.
Success Can Get Messy
Sales innovation is what it takes to excel today and adapt quickly to change. But what does it take to innovate?
Larry Robertson has a good answer for that. In his post—”Want to Be More Innovative? In 1 Sentence, This MIT Scientist Nails What’s Getting in the Way”—he explains why we can’t innovate and maintain the familiar, comfortable status quo.
While much has been written about creativity and innovation and how we can gain these skills individually and in our workplaces, MIT scientist and New York Times bestselling author Sherry Turkle recently captured the core problem in a single, simple sentence:
“When the messy becomes tidy, we learn to enjoy that.”
In a piece for The Washington Post, Turkle wasn’t writing about corporate recruiting woes. She wasn’t even writing directly about innovation, though her focus was robots and specifically a new breed of toy robots designed to be more “human-like”. Their developers argue that these high tech companions can teach children about empathy and relationships, even stand in for humans as a “friend.” Turkle’s point was simple: It’s just not that simple.
Read the rest of Robertson’s post for more.
Ready for Sales Innovation?
I ask these questions when people want to change up their prospecting and adopt a referral system.
- What is your cost of not making the transition to referral selling?
- What are you losing or giving up as a result of this transition?
- What is the cost of doing nothing?
I didn’t say it was going to be easy.
If you’re a sales leader, are ready to change the game, and want to have a discussion about referral selling, send an email to joanne@nomorecoldcalling.com, and we’ll schedule time to talk. I always share best practices and insights I’ve gleaned from other sales leaders. It’s a conversation, not a sales pitch.