Knowing Yourself
“Know thyself” professed the Oracle of Delphi.
Tools such as DISC and EQ assessments help us see more clearly through the maze of our own functioning.
Isn’t it interesting that the most revered and inspiring business leaders have coaches and trusted advisors, while they also read on average one book per week?
The underlying message is clear: as long as we feed our mind with mental protein, we grow.
Conversely, by feeding our mind with mental candy, we shrink.
And we have our hands on the steering wheel, Captain!
Secret tool number five: your K/S base.
Looking into the very knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in the world of business development and sales today:
- Planning: knowing your numbers and how to allocate your time to get the best return on your investment is the master skill of success.
- Self management: this is your ability to manage your thoughts, feelings and actions to do what it takes. You implement your plan while keeping your ideal end in sight.
- Strategic pipeline building: you invest your time wisely across key result activities in the right proportion, knowing your closing ratio and other relevant numbers. This increases your likelihood of hitting and exceeding your KPIs.
- Qualifying: an uncanny ability to source deep information from customers and prospects to uncover issues, needs, wants and desires like no one else, so that you can find a relevant solution.
- Writing impactful documents: there is a science behind quote, tender and proposal writing. Most people just wing it, they gamble with little chance of success, until they work smarter.
- Presenting a compelling offer: this is where a degree of showmanship is required. It involves the ability to read people and present in a way that is engaging, following a specific structure that is engineered for buy-in.
- Objection handling: the best salesmen and women know their ideal client profiles intimately, so they pre-empt key concerns early on. They also have practiced other objections well before they go into the meeting, so they are prepared and can handle them elegantly and confidently to secure new business.
- Influencing: it takes a fair amount of emotional intelligence to keep a prospective buyer engaged and close to us so that we can influence their decision making once they left the room.
- Converting: this is the ability to confidently and professionally ask for the business, in many different ways, while helping the customer feel comfortable about making a decision. The key difference is how the customer feels in the process. We create buying desire, as opposed to applying pressure.
- Success automation: your ability to generate a steady stream of repeat and referral business, knowing that you have the systems and processes set up for it.
Knowing what to do, and when, helps to make more sales. However, the single biggest contributor to business development and sales success, once the former 10 are in place, is a proactive attitude.
See it this way: action without clarity is futile, but laser focused action backed with competence, candour and care are irresistible for buyers.
As buyers, we all love credible people fueled with passion and genuine enthusiasm to help us for our sake; experts that see it as their responsibility to earn our trust and have our back, time and time again.
So where is your weakest link in the chain of K/S? Rate each of the ten mentioned fields on a scale from 0 to 10 to find out.
If you would like to back this up with proper, independent data, I can assist you with a thorough K/S assessment relevant to your role, your industry and your goals.
Just book in an individual consult with me and we can discuss your options
Talk soon,
Bram Lagrou
Author of Selling is out. Create buy-in
Host of the National $ales Conference
Creator of Communication Mastery, Speak Up Clean Up, and Best Year Ever
Seminar Leader of Business Development Academy and Purpose Passion Power
Professional Speaker
