Impact on Sales Performance

Non Supportive Buy Cycle is one of the many hidden weaknesses we identify when evaluating sales teams. The premise of this weakness is that there is a 100% correlation between how salespeople make major purchases and the stalls and putt-offs they accept from their prospects. The cure is to change the way the salespeople buy so that they buy in such a way that it supports the selling process. At that point, they will expect their prospects to buy that way too.

I recently had an opportunity to experience a parallel behavioral event. My wife recently pointed out that I fail to stop for people who wish to cross the street. Not only was she right, I realized that I never expected anyone to stop for me either! Great example of mistakenly believing that personal behavior, however positive or negative, appears normal to the owner of the behavior.

As one can do with Buy Cycle, I made a decision to change my behavior and immediately began stopping for every pedestrian who needed to cross. The change was easy because I was finally aware of the issue and I had a great incentive to make the change. Saturday, as my wife and I were crossing a major intersection, a bus driver leaned on his horn and scared the ever living fecal matter out of me, gave me the finger and dropped the f bomb on me. In addition to the anger I felt at him for his behavior, I was in awe of what had just happened.

I expected him to stop! The result of my change in behavior was that I expected others to behave that way too.

When your salespeople buy in such a way that it supports the selling process, they’ll expect their prospects to do the same. Which of your salespeople have hidden weaknesses that cause them to be ineffective? Evaluate your sales team and find out!