Overcome the Loyalty Objection

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Loyalty isn’t deserved, it needs to be earned. How to overcome a prospect’s guilt regarding staying with an existing service provider.

If a prospect truly believes your service is better and would prefer working with you, then it would be a no-brainer for them to move forward right? The problem is, even when people know the right decision to make, they are conflicted by being disloyal to their current provider. The following is a good approach on how to overcome that obstacle.

  1. Be empathetic. This is where Emotional Intelligence comes in and why I prioritize this set of competencies above all else in sales and leadership. Validate their concerns and be curious to why they value the existing relationship as it will give you a perspective on what they fear they would lose in addition to qualities they would want to maintain in their next relationship.
  2. Let them know an authentic story where you were faced with the same challenge and how you overcame it.
  3. Share a story about a previous prospect and how they were able to move forward and overcome this fear of disloyalty. There are three types of stories that may apply:
    • If it’s not allegedly broken, don’t fix it story – a former prospect who several months later recognized specific benefits despite having a fabulous relationship with their previous supplier. If your prospect talked to his client, they would say “Thank Goodness I made this change.”
    • I didn’t know what I was missing story – because people fear change, they don’t actually take the time to assess or evaluate their current service provider instead they make choices based on emotion. This would be a story of how you came in and did a diagnostic, assessment, or consult to show the benefits of change and why despite their loyalty to their current provider, the prospect should have made this change a long time ago.
    • Proactive vs Reactive story – A prospect who kept postponing because of their guilt over being disloyal and then had to change reactively because their current provider couldn’t deliver, didn’t have the knowledge or experience, or didn’t have the resources to solve their newfound problems.
  4. Don’t Defend and Justify – whenever salespeople are faced with an objection there is a tendency to want to defend it or justify why you/your company approaches it the way they do. I coach the opposite. Instead of wanting to prove the prospect wrong, use discovery and inquiry methods to find out what is really going on. When a prospect says they are conflicted about changing vendors and they are going to stand pat, you can ask the following questions to gauge what level of dissatisfaction they actually feel. *Remember tone is very important when conveying these questions.
    • If you are feeling conflicted about changing, what prompted you to bring us in here in the first place? (Remind them why they asked you to come in as their guilt might have distracted them)
    • When is the last time you tried an alternative or did an apples to apples comparison to ensure you are getting the best solution?
    • If you were to make a change, are there specific aspects of service, quality, performance, etc. you feel like you would be losing?
    • If you had a magic wand and your current provider could improve on a few things, what would you tell them?

Often prospects need an alternate perspective because it is an innate human quality for many people to anticipate or fear the worst. Remember, if you are dealing with someone who is conflict-avoidant, their fears might be irrational, but without an alternate perspective they will never know.

To address this, I ask “If you told your contact you had found a better solution, what would you be worried that they would say? Once the prospect articulates their concern, I turn the tables and ask “If the roles were reversed, what would your expectation be? In other words, if someone you had a solid relationship with came to you and said they were switching from using your product or service and had practical and tangible reasons to do it, would you hold that against them? The answer would typically be no. Unless you have a signed contract, there is no obligation to stay with a vendor purely out of loyalty. It’s your job to help your prospect identify what really matters in choosing a service provider and recognize that loyalty only goes so far.

As a final thought, I close this technique by acknowledging to the prospect a core value of mine to reinforce that I would expect and hope to be held to the same standard if I was the vendor and a competitor attempted to replace me.

To learn more about our Sales Emotional Intelligence program, or to learn more about the various MindsetGo offerings, please visit MindsetGo.

Thinking vs Feeling

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Have you ever thought about the difference between the words think vs feel?

When you think something, it could imply you don’t actually know it. For example, if you were to walk into a store and ask one of their employees where you could find a certain item you were looking for, and they said “I think” it’s in aisle 8, then they aren’t really sure. As a leader, when you say I think you are also in problem-solving mode as opposed to asking questions and listening mode which often conveys an intellectual or analytical response.

As an alternative, get in the habit of saying “I feel” so you are speaking from the heart. How do another person’s actions make you feel? How will it help a person change their behavior or habits if that person knew how they made you feel? As we discussed in the last training, most often people don’t do things maliciously and sometimes they need a reminder on why and how to do things differently.

Let’s Get Engaged!

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Employee Disengagement

One of the most common observations about employees nowadays is that they are disengaged. But, what did we expect? We have seldom created a culture of open and honest communication and as a practical rule, that environment will not invent itself. It can only happen intentionally. Only by creating an atmosphere where employees feel engaged and valued, can we get genuine answers to those vital questions. Companies will often bring in outside consultants to do engagement surveys to gather more information about their employees. This is a necessary first step, however the ensuing critical thinking process is what will determine if and how to use the survey results.

Actions Need to Equal Words

Are you prepared to make changes if employees communicate they’re unhappy? Are you prepared to address their concerns if enough people are asking? We always advise companies to not ask questions you aren’t prepared to act on and have a clear metric on how many people need to voice a frustration to motivate you to change. Without some clear understanding of what the organization is prepared and able to do, any engagement survey is unlikely to fulfill its promise.

Next Steps

A difficult decision to make with assessments is whether to make them anonymous. When employees know that the assessment isn’t about punishment or judgment, and there are no consequences, the individuals will be more apt to be open and honest with their communication to leadership. On the flip side, leadership must acknowledge that creating the conditions for open conversation isn’t likely to happen if there is no past precedent. The challenge we help organizations with is how to create that culture for authentic sharing of thoughts, ideas, feelings, and general feedback. We must prepare for these crucial conversations before, during, and after we inquire about our employees’ engagement.

Accomplishing Success

After all, W. Edwards Deming, the father of modern quality, reminded us of two things—that the most important things in a company can’t be measured, and that people are entitled to enjoy their work.

For more information on how MindsetGo can help your company culture, improve internal and external communication among your leaders and teams, and improve employee engagement, please check out MindsetGo.com or call us at 978-206-1535.

People Can Change… Can’t They?

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Food for Thought

In 1975, a Kodak engineer went to the company’s leadership and described what he had created—the first digital photograph! They expressed their astonishment at his brilliance and marveled at his ability to predict the future of their industry. Oh wait…. That’s not what happened… The company’s leadership told him that there was no value to his work and that no one would ever want to see an electronic version of a picture. They (or so they thought) had seen the future, and Kodak wasn’t in it.

Did You Know?

It’s been widely estimated that at least 50% of organization’s change initiatives are either over budget, over schedule, or have outright failed to meet planned objectives.   Research shows that 95% of who we are by the time we are 35 years old is a memorized set of behaviors, emotional reactions, unconscious habits, and hardwired attitudes with beliefs as well as perceptions that function like a computer program.

Now What?

Can people change? The answer is, YES, they can. The questions that must serve as guidance are: How does this change happen? What needs to happen to bring about this change?

Organizational Awareness

Believe it or not, nature provides an outline for dealing with change in an organization. The first question to evaluate is, “What needs to die?”  Organizations must stop and think about the following: What actions do we need to suspend that are no longer serving us or translating to success?  Additionally, if changes have recently been made, organizations must assess: What has been learned from those changes and how can those lessons be utilized for new growth? Finally, how can we invest in successful new growth?

That’s certainly a lot of questions, however I believe that each is vital to understanding the nature of change in an organization. There is clearly not a quick solution, but instead a comprehensive understanding of a variety of factors and meaningful strategies.

For more information on how MindsetGo can help your company implement change initiatives, improve internal communication among your leaders and teams, and facilitate difficult conversations, please check out MindsetGo.com or call us at 978-206-1535.

​​Do Sales Assessments Really Help?

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One of the most interesting challenges I face when training and coaching people is when I encounter two kinds of people. The first kind I refer to as a “Yeah But”. Yeah But’s are people who when learning something new are stubborn and resistant and default to a fixed mindset. The Yeah But’s proudly exclaim why these new techniques and methods wouldn’t work as opposed to why they would. You know the glass-half-empty type. The second kind of person is the one who when learning instinctively responds or thie body language indicates “I already knew that”. The interesting question I propose back is, if you already knew it, how come you aren’t doing it, or how come you haven’t developed the habit to execute this strategy consistently?

This brings me to the importance of sales assessments and the critical importance of knowing how to gauge and properly self-assess where you need help and are falling short. The ability to be self-aware is something very few people know how to do, are inclined to do, or fear that they will be exposed. Sales assessments should be used in three ways. First, for hiring purposes. Second, to ascertain where people’s skills or competencies fall short. Third, to understand where salespeople have become complacent or need a refresher to remind them of what made them successful in the first place.

One thing that has always baffled me when assessments are used for hiring purposes, is when you identify the shortcomings of a potential candidate, yet still hire them, why a coaching plan isn’t developed and implemented as early as the onboarding process to address those development areas. If a candidate is worth the hire and has flaws, which they all do, why not capitalize on what you’ve identified and act on it.

When it comes to gauging skill or competency gaps, MindsetGo has developed custom assessments to gauge a salesperson’s verbal and written communication abilities, presentation skills, habit and goal development,  and sales emotional intelligence skills related to assertiveness and dealing with rejection.

Have your sales leadership and members of your sales team take the respective assessments below and receive a feedback session and a suggested plan on how to maximize the potential of your team and your investment in them.

Sales Leadership AssessmentSalesperson Gap Assessment

May I be Excused, My Brain is Full

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Think Better. Providing action-oriented training to help leaders create better outcomes for employees and businesses.

Why Is Thinking So Hard? 

 What makes the job of the thinker such a difficult one? And why does it seem to have gotten harder lately?

The answer to the first question is simple—ego. Ego is responsible for most of the difficulties we encounter. No one likes to be wrong—or at least we don’t want to be seen aiding the losing side (it’s widely believed that in the presidential election of 1980, many voters in the western part of the country stayed home after television reports of Ronald Reagan’s East Coast victory and Jimmy Carter’s early concession speech).

Ego works hard to avoid any sort of failure—even when no one is looking. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We always have the choice to view new opportunities from two different perspectives. The first view is, “I don’t want to look bad.” This restricts our options and limits the likelihood that we will take chances. Especially in the workplace, this attitude can be fatal to employers and employees alike. What is lost when our workforce adopts this view? And we must ask, how are we rewarding people. Do we subsidize timidity and adherence to the status quo? We know from neuroscience research that failure, when followed up with successive attempts to achieve a goal, actually alters our brains in a positive way. Many of us have experienced our greatest learning as a result of failure. 

The first step is being willing to admit there may be something we don’t know. As science fiction author, Robert Heinlein stated, “The hardest part about gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. As long as that niche is occupied, evidence and proof and logical demonstration get nowhere. But once the niche is emptied of the wrong idea that has been filling it—once you can honestly say, ‘I don’t know,’ then it becomes possible to get at the truth.”

The second perspective is to say, “I want to be the best I can be.” We often say this of course, but not in a meaningful way. If we mean it, we’ll take chances, we’ll move forward even when there’s the possibility of being wrong or being seen as out-of-step with others. In short, we’ll make our own path. Without this willingness, our thinking process becomes sclerotic. Again, we have to ask, what type of approach are we rewarding.

As to why thinking nowadays seems to be harder, the modern age has allowed us to surround ourselves with opportunities to reinforce habits that interfere with clear and critical thinking. For example, when a news article has four sentences in a paragraph, three of them (sentences 1,2 and 4) may be statements of fact and the fourth (sentence 3) is an opinion. The way they are presented causes the reader to understand them as four factual statements. When we were limited to professionally written and edited news sources this was much less common. Now we have a nearly unlimited number of resources, but in many cases, they have not been vetted much less edited to be free of such mistakes.  The line between fact and opinion has never been more blurred.

We’re also constantly bombarded with news and information. Not so long ago we might have read a newspaper in the morning and watched the television news in the evening, allowing ourselves most of the day or night to process the information. No longer.

The reality of the modern era is that we have more data but often less understanding.

The solution then is to stop–stop taking in more information than you can process. Disconnect for a while and sit and think, with no distractions—even if it’s only for 30 minutes a week. No interruptions, no phones, no kidding. We have to have time to process. An excellent option is to take five minutes at the beginning of each day and just consider what the day has in store. Perhaps take a moment to be grateful for the opportunity to take a moment.

Go ahead, try it. At least think about it.

Always, Never or Perhaps Something Different

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As a leader who is managing multiple generations, personalities and workplace challenges, it can be easy to lose faith in your team. When people fail to meet our expectations regarding delegation, problem-solving, decision-making, or follow through you can start to develop a discouraged and impatient mindset. This often results in among other things, starting to do everything yourself. Here are three elements of self-awareness when you start feeling like you are experiencing disappointment or resistance.

Three Step Process When Feeling Frustrated With People

Inner Voice: Everything I do is met with resistance – creating fear and anxiety

Self-Awareness: Is it truly everything or just with certain people and situations?

Inner Voice: Why are some things I do met with fear and resistance?

Self-Awareness: People don’t want to be held accountable or perhaps they are dealing with their own challenges they don’t know how to effectively articulate.

Inner Voice: On top of everything else, nobody is responding to the emails I send

Self-Awareness: A lot of factors contribute to why people don’t respond to messages so I won’t assume this reflects on me or this person’s perception of me or the message.

 

Beyond Engagement

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With all the buzz about how to engage people virtually, here are three quick tips to get people locked in from the get-go

  1. Magic Wand – ask the audience a question that gets them thinking about a dream problem they experience and would love solved related to the webinar topic . Have them type in a short answer. This allows you to access what is on your audience’s mind and make your presentation as relevant as possible.  It’s one great to learn new things but even better to know how and where to apply them.
  2. Y or N – another great method to engage your audience is to ask a question and simply ask them to type in a Y or N as a response. If many of your audience members won’t even respond with a letter, you may have lost them or best case, need to engage or re-engage them.
  3. Two Versions – many people are visual learners. Are the images you are relying on visually stimulating or is it just a bunch of words? Are they just staring at you the whole time? Visual support images should be used to supplement your verbal message and they should be compelling. The words can be sent after the fact in a handout or an alternate version of the PowerPoint that is focused on takeaway strategies and best practices.

To learn more about virtual, employee, or client engagement contact us at 978-206-1535 or info@mindsetgo.flywheelsites.com for coaching or training support.

I Don’t Know

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What is so hard about those three little words? Is it that we assume people will question our knowledge? Or our credibility? Maybe it is what those words tell us about ourselves that makes us so uncomfortable. The good news is that being able to say “I don’t know” speaks more to your ability to be self-aware and honest, rather than being an indictment of your self-worth. In sales, prospects want to deal with people who are authentic and won’t BS them. The second you articulate “I don’t know”, prospects care more about what you’ll do to find the right answer and whether those resources are reliable. For all the reasons or excuses salespeople provide for why deals fall through, the last time I checked, none of them included “I lost the deal because I couldn’t instantly answer a question.” So what are your options when you’re stumped?

Qualifying

The simple answer is you can start your response with qualifiers like, “That’s a good question, I have never been asked that before, or Here’s what I can tell you now….” Follow the qualifier by communicating how and from whom you will find THE answer and when you will let them know. This leads me to the resources you have at your company.

Many young salespeople rely on their boss or their colleagues to jump on calls with them or to fill in the gaps they are still feeling unsure about. It is an outstanding way to get accurate information and it could also be an obvious indicator, that this person needs more training, either in general or in a more specific area. Additionally, in a sales leader’s haste to manage their workload, they may miss cues when a salesperson brings them isolated questions in hopes of not stalling a potential deal.

Admitting you don’t know something doesn’t destroy trust; it builds it

Ironically, I find those three words have often had a positive impact and created trust in the early stages of a relationship. When a prospect asks me how I can help or what they need to do differently, many times I answer, “I don’t know” because I would need to know more information and then convey that we can craft a solution together. This gives the prospect peace of mind that I am not offering a quick-fix, templated approach and is also consistent with the core values I practice.

Close Encounter of A Different Kind

You are going to encounter new questions all the time and frankly, if you don’t know the answer, there’s a good chance someone on your team doesn’t either. It’s hard enough to admit that you don’t know something to a prospect but admitting it to a sales leader who believes s/he has already trained you on these details is an uncomfortable proposition. What about asking this question in front of the team and opening yourself up to potential ridicule? As daunting as this sounds, it is likely many of your sales colleagues will be happy you asked because not only were they also uncomfortable asking that question, it’s often the one they wished they had the courage to ask themselves.

Ignorance is Bliss

The best sales leaders create a workplace culture where not only are their direct reports comfortable asking questions directly to them, but also in front of the group so everyone can benefit. I also recommend to sales leaders that they aggregate these questions into an internal FAQ for scaling and onboarding purposes because if one person asks, most likely others will have the same question down the line.

If you chose sales as your profession, you are most likely competitive and ideally seek every bit of information you need to be successful. By giving incomplete or inaccurate answers you risk your reputation, success, and as important, a potential customer’s trust. We need to spend less time being ashamed of what we don’t know, and more time taking the initiative to increase our knowledge base. There is no harm in being uninformed, only in pretending not to be and not doing something about it.

To learn more about virtual, employee, or client engagement contact us at 978-206-1535 or info@mindsetgo.flywheelsites.com.

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