This world is so noisy. Your role as a sales person is to break through it. The problem is, everyones doing the same things. People are still banging on about social selling like its the best kept secret. Nope, everyones doing it. And those presentations you rely on that you think are super unique? Nope, seen it.
Now more than ever sales people need to stand out. The opportunity, however, is that now more than ever, the world is ready and open for you to stand out. We’re bored of the same tactics, and we’re really good at avoiding them (thanks, internet).
I’m not a master of many (any?) things but I am lucky in being creative. It makes life a lot more fun when you’re not following the norm. Most people will agree that creativity is something that can be learnt so theres hope for all; more on that later. For a sales professional, the most applicable area would be prospecting, but there are others too
Prospecting
One of my favorite sales authors is Jeffrey Gitomer. I used to sell sales training reinforcement technology as an OEM through sales training companies. Years ago, I wanted to get a deal going with Jeffrey. I had made contact but then he went quiet and I couldn’t get him to respond to anything. But then I thought about a lesson in his Little Red Book of Selling. I used my younger sister’s email account (she was 13 or 14 at the time). I sent Jeffrey an email which read. “Hi there, this is (her name), Greg’s little sister. He said that he has been trying to talk with you but can’t connect. He told me that if he has a great year of work then he’ll take me to Disney World so please, please call him back!” Twenty minutes later I got an email from him saying, “I got your sisters email. Well done. Let’s talk Monday.”
The point is, I did something very different from the standard approach. Not only was it different (and bold), it was incredibly personalized. I had clearly read his book and there was no way he couldn’t respond to his own advice!
Try some other wacky methods; fax (if I hear a fax coming through to my office, I’m reading it!), snail mail, custom cards, certified mail, send them something physical (within reason)…. Get weird with it.
Presenting
“Power point is boring” - Dwight Schrute…. .ppt IS boring! 65 slides with 500 words per slide…. Nope, nope, nope. Less is more. Use visual aids of course, but tell a story. I said I’m creative but one area I know I need help is story telling; I get tied up on my words. People remember stories and more importantly, the people who tell them. Instead of PowerPoint, try prezi. There are other tools coming to market too. An example of a tool just released is www.stick.ai from entrepreneur and sales coaching expert, Alli McKee. Stick is a platform that allows for interactive presentations; you can see more here.
Training
Sales training is potentially a landmine of pure boredom. Imagine staring at powerpoint for three days being told stuff. Deadly. Again, though, theres such opportunity to really engage. At the Sales Enablement Society conference last year in San Antonio I listened to a sales enablement leader from HP talk about some more creative ideas she'd had for training exercises. One of the coolest ideas she shared was that of turning a conference room into an escape room. The participants had to find all sorts of clues in order to get out and in order to find the clues they were essentially forced to learn about the new products and how to sell them. Another idea was to run a mini state fair in the office with tons of games but the games were all centered on methodology, product and process.
Can it be learnt?
Honestly, I wouldn't have thought so. But smarter folk than I insist it can. Mr. Gitomer for example recommends books like Thinker Toys as a means for tuning ones creative prowess. I also found this link among many others claiming likewise. https://www.creativityatwork.com/2012/03/23/can-creativity-be-taught/
The point is, the world isn't so formal anymore. We live for experience and most of us aren't bound by pointless tradition. Be creative, be bold, take some risk and enjoy the results.
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