I sign off on my newsletters with “Enjoy the Journey.” Life is a journey with a new destination set every time we reach one. Change is growth and growth is learning. Our knowledge and beliefs evolve with new experiences. This is how we keep up and keep current.
The marketplace changes every day with new experiences. Your prospect’s buying process evolves when their needs become reality, and if you don’t grow and change with them, you will be left behind. Your competition may have started the conversation with a prospect before they invited you to participate by submitting your proposal. Once you submit yours, the prospect feels comfortable going with your competitor, because your sales skills were a little rusty in presenting your company as the winning solution provider.
Companies and organizations that invite new resources from outside create a culture of growth. This simulation helps the sales team stay moving and active; because they learn new tools and techniques and discard ineffective traditions, so they can keep up with the marketplace. They practice the Sea of Galilee philosophy.
Traditional companies that don’t evolve implement the Dead Sea philosophy. Nothing can live in the Dead Sea. There is nothing flowing in or out.
When you invest in adding and evolving your sales skills and learning new ways for better results, your outlook will be more positive, you will prospect more, you will be more confident, you will qualify better, you will shorten the sales cycles, you will go after bigger prospects and make more money.
The Dead Sea culture has a sales process that has not evolved in relation to the prospects buying process. In today’s marketplace it is leveraged against you, while adding favor to the competition. In this case, not training a sales team actually costs money in sales revenue, when they cannot compete. Zig Ziglar said it best, “The only thing worse than training employees and losing them is not training them and keeping them.”
If your company does not have a Sea of Galilee culture, you can start your own. Consider how much time you spend every month on your education versus your entertainment. Are they equal? Which is greater?
Constant change and consistent growth will get you out of your comfort zone. Remember: Nothing changes on the outside (sales results), until something changes on the inside (knowledge, beliefs, skills). New experiences are like new experiments – an improved outcome every time. Learn something new, and try it. Don’t stay in the Dead Sea. Your prospects don’t live there either.
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