• Home
  • Position Statement
  • Seminars & Simulations
    • Transformational Leadership

      TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP


      The transformed organization is the Collective Intelligence of its people. It's a network of teams. People own the responsibility for their own performance because it is vital to the success of the WHOLE business.

    • Sales-menu

      THE COUNSELOR SALESPERSON


      The Counselor Salesperson (CSP), a Wilson Learning program, is based upon the simple premise that “people love to buy” but they “hate being sold. ”Learning to sell by understanding how people like to buy is a dramatic departure from the traditional “do it to them approach.”

    • Simulation

      THE ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION™ SIMULATION


      This simulation experience is about the transformation of both the context and the content of the business environment.




    • Strategic Visioning

      CREATING A STRATEGIC VISION


      Strategic Visioning is a dynamic planning process that creates a Structural Framework for transforming the Business of the BUSINESS.

  • Books & Publications
  • Leadership Blog
  • Sales Blog
  • Contact Us

 

 
 
Comment and Question: Tom, I been asked by our main manufacturer to be part of a panel discussion that describes why our company is so successful.  They see our success when they measure our market share numbers but those numbers are about how much of what we sell.  They don’t reveal the true reason for our success.  Our success is a function of how we sell.  You know our company.  All of our sales professionals have attended your counselor selling workshop.  We’ve embraced the selling on purpose philosophy.  I’ve told them about this approach at council meetings and they dismiss it as something that will not work with what they call hard core price buyers.  A description of our approach will be very different from the other presenters.  How should I present our approach without sounding confrontational?   S. T.
 
Answer:  S. T.  What a great opportunity for you to deliver a very strategic message to everyone in attendance.  Be clear that success in any business is totally a function of “behavior” that can not be measured.  After Counselor Selling, your sales people began to “behave” very differently.  They did the Care Reviews to “understand” your existing customers.  That “behavior change” started your journey to the success you are realizing today and very few manufacturers have measures to determine how that happened.  All measurements are of “effects”-- not causation.  What they want to hear is about the “cause.”  
 
There is an old truth that states: “No one can talk (negotiate) themself out of what they behaved themself into.”  This is a very difficult lesson for many people and companies to learn.  No company can “talk” (sell) itself out of a product defect – a late delivery – a poor customer service interaction – a picture on the menu board that does not come in the bag.   Yet, many companies advertise the “new and improved” hoping to regain lost credibility.  Some even change their names to suggest that new “behavior” is in something “bigger” and “better.”   Yet, the “muscle memory” of the faulty “behavior” pattern remains and is the actual “cause” of customer neglect.  As your people learned in Counselor Selling, No-Trust is a massive barrier that can not be overcome with “talk” about “sports” or superior products or any increase in magnitude differences.
 
S. T.   As a Leader, you were very wise starting many years ago to invest in changing the “behavior” of your sales people.  There were many things that had to change, but the “macro behavior” pattern was to create a critical mass of everyone “Selling ON PURPOSE.”  That was the philosophy taught in Counselor Selling.  You knew this would work based upon your past career. 
 
What should you reveal about your success during the panel discussion?  Be “humble” in presentation.  Humility is a “behavior” that is not confrontational.  Tell them how your people defined the selling system to support ON PURPOSE, Win-WIn behavior.  Everyone needed to learn how to “behave” even with the “hard core” price buyers.  The “arm wrestle” in Counselor Selling proved that this could be done.  Tell them about reaching the critical mass of Counselor behavior with the young people and how even the most senior sales people THEN had to get on board.  Tell them what we did to get the senior “guys” to buy-in. Tell them how the critical mass had to include the “behavior” of your entire company.  Everyone had to “behave” their role as described in the story about the Business of Your BusinessYes, Leading the Counselor “behavior” was difficult at first, but now it is “effortless and effective.”  Customer loyalty, not market share, is the measure of “effortless-effectiveness.” 
 
You know this presentation.  I’ve heard you give it many times. Summarize your presentation by saying, “Customers must BUY who we ARE before they are even interested in WHAT we HAVE (products) or WHAT we DO.  Who we ARE is proven by our behavior – not tenure or size or the scope of our offering.  That is WHY we ARE successful.  We made the simple CHOICE that everyone has a role in executing the Business of Our Business and the difference is in How We Sell ON PURPOSE.     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

You are here: Home Sales Blog Behave the Business of the Business