“If you don’t know where you’re, going any road will get you there.” This quote is often attributed to Lewis Carroll from his book “Alice in Wonderland” even though the exact comment was never made in the book or by Carroll. It’s really a summary of the wisdom offered, to Alice, by the Cheshire Cat. Whatever the origin, it absolutely applies in sales.
Like Alice, if the sales person doesn’t know what they must achieve, to win the sale, any action is right. If you don’t know what it looks like to be winning the sale, the universe of potential actions is unlimited which can lead to a lot of action with no results. The best sales people use experience, pattern recognition and methodologies to simplify the situational analysis so they can quickly choose their best next actions and also guide their teammates.
This doesn’t apply just to Alice and sales people. If you talk to anyone who regularly engages in competitive pursuits, you’ll hear them talk about what it looks like to be winning.
- Chess players say that controlling the center of the board is what it looks like to be winning
- Cyclists say that setting the pace at the front of the pack is what it looks like to be winning
- Football coaches often say that a solid ground game is what it looks like to be winning
- Tennis players often say controlling the net is what it looks like to be winning
In all these cases the player benefits from being clear on what it looks like to be winning. It increases our productivity when we know what it looks like to be on the right path. Like athletes and chess players, the best sales people use experience, pattern recognition and simplifying methodologies, like The Five Abilities®, to sift through all the potential next actions to target the subset of best next actions that address why customers buy from us versus our competition.
Good, simplifying sales methodologies, like The Five Abilities®, help you avoid Lewis Carroll’s quandary of not knowing how to choose. Even better, you’ll avoid the fate that the ever prescient baseball great, Yogi Berra, warns us about when he said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you will wind up somewhere else.” Incredibly successful sales people don’t wind up somewhere else.
©2014 Rick Wong – The Five Abilities, LLC
