There are farmers and hunters in sales and both are needed in organisations. The hunters are energised by landing the deal and bored with the paperwork and administrivia required after the sale. The farmers are not much chop at landing new clients, but they are genius at taking care of existing clients and keeping them as repeater clients.
I am a hunter. I realise about myself that I love finding new clients, discovering what they need and then helping them to achieve their goals and aims. There is the thrill of getting the deal, manufactured from nothing because you had to go out there and beat the bushes. Now, not every effort results in a deal. Sadly, a number escape, some go with a competitor (ouch), some ghost me and do nothing. I always take all three of these outcomes badly.
It sounds trite to say it, but I really believe that what we have can help the buyer and if they don’t take the offer, they are missing out. I believe that 100%. Now, the emotional roller-coaster of sales means we need to have a safety net when we stumble. We can’t always land the deal, so there are going to be more failures than wins. How do we keep our confidence and certainty intact to allow us to get back up and try again? Part of this is how we rationalise failure.
I always say to myself that the buyer made a mistake to not buy from me. I recognise I can always do better as a salesperson and that I am not perfect, but beyond that I don’t blame myself. I analyse what I did and didn’t do, but I don’t allow any negativity into my brain. Sales is so emotional, I feel I have to isolate that side of me from the results. When I land the deal, I don’t start leaping about the place in unbridled joy either. I feel a quiet pleasure that I can now help to transform this company’s business. That is what we do, and we have seen it happen with our own eyes, so we know it is true and not just marketing pap.
Those moments of success have to the leaven out all the failures. Recently, I spoke about having a very depressing week where one deal after another either fell over, was lost, or was postponed. That was hard and coming one after another, you begin to doubt yourself. In sales, it is never about the big deals you have done in the past, it is always about what are you doing right now. This is the reality of sales, which is why we have to insulate our minds from fears of inadequacy and failure.
For hunters, the finding of the client and then transforming that relationship into a deal and a client is what keeps us going. I attend a lot of networking events and I have my pattern of behaviour. I always arrive early and stand at the table with all the name badges. The staff hand me my badge and then can’t work out why I don’t buzz off, get out of the way and go inside.
I keep standing there and I carefully scan every name. I am looking for people I already know so that I can use their name when I see them, in case I may have forgotten it. I look for companies who could be prospects and I look for people I have wanted to meet, but have not managed it so far.
When I finish that, I stand right in the doorway and start meeting people who come in. Often they mistake me for one of the hosts of the event but I don’t mind that, I want to meet them. I exchange business cards with them and ask them about their business and how many people they have. That information is enough for me to make a judgment about how we can help them. If they have few people, then it is hard to organise training and our public classes are perfect for them. If they have over thirty people, then they can possibly do an in-house class.
Following that, I work the room and try to meet as many people as possible. In sales, I have to kiss a lot of frogs before I can find the beautiful princess. I was doing just that at the New Year’s party for the American Chamber. I had been there, standing around for hours already and had met a lot of people. I bumped into an older Japanese gentleman who I didn’t know and exchanged cards.
Next month we are delivering Leadership Training For Managers in-house, for all of his senior managers. That is creating a new client from nothing but my time and effort to attend the event and work the room. Obviously there were many meetings after that initial meeting but I got the deal and we will get paid for the training.
These successes help to balance out the failures like that big Japanese Pharma company who recently told me they went with a competitor – did I mention ouch. The wins are important to keep us hunters going, because it is tough duking it out in the market. We need to be resilient and unemotional, both about the failing and in the winning. We are constantly living on the edge of winning and losing, and that is where the thrill of the chase is determined.
