Sports stars have coaches, business leaders have coaches – even pet owners have coaches.
Having a coach makes life easier for us sales guys but beware – this doesn’t mean our managers.
The coach we need is somebody on the “inside” of the prospect organization. Somebody who wants us to win the business, and is prepared to help us do it, probably unknown to his/her colleagues.
During the course of a sale the people we’re dealing with will progress through three emotional states:
- Open – happy to answer questions and listen to arguments
- Closed – when they’re trying to decide on preferences and figure out colleagues
- Supportive – when they’ve decided to prefer our offer and want to help us win
In the “supportive” state our prospect will be open to “coaching” us – telling us what’s happening on the inside, what colleagues are saying and what our competition is doing. They might not be openly promoting our offer, but are doing what they can to help.
Coaches help us spot threats and know how to deal with them.
Having an internal coach is a critical success factor and a major milestone in our qualification process.
Check out these short articles to find out more about sales qualification, and how to do it.
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