Have you ever walked out of an executive’s office after a critical sales call – and immediately started kicking yourself about what you should have said, what you should have known?
Of course you have. And you’re not alone.
The trick is to use that hindsight to your advantage. After every executive engagement – successful or not – make it a practice to self-assess, self-coach and improve. It’s like the game tapes athletes watch after every win or loss. The idea is to study what you did right, what you did wrong – and how you can learn from both to improve performance next time.
Athletes obviously have coaches to help them improve. Maybe you’re lucky enough to have a sales manager with the time and ability to coach you – to actually go out on sales calls with you to observe and provide feedback on your performance.
But I’m guessing you often don’t. Given today’s hectic schedules, sales managers tend to be consumed by the demands of closing deals and hitting sales targets, leaving little time for one-on-one coaching.
Develop a Self-Coaching Regimen
For truly motivated sales professionals, the ticket to improving performance lies within. More to the point: If you don’t figure out what you need to do better yourself, nobody is going to figure it out for you.
To be sure, what you have in your head – and what you actually say when you’re face to face with a customer executive – are often two different things.
An ideal practice to develop for anyone who sincerely wants to build credible engagement skills with executives is to create a Scorecard and fill it out immediately after key in-person meetings or telephone calls. You’ve got to be completely honest. You’ve also got to do it while the details are fresh; the exercise will be less effective if you even wait a day.
And save this regimen for calls with truly senior-level executives, otherwise the routine won’t stick.
The best approach is to memorize the Scorecard questions. This will help you build your skills and confidence as you prepare for your calls. Below are recommended questions for on your Scorecard, but you may decide to add some of your own. Over time you may want to narrow the focus of your Scorecard to those areas needing most improvement or posing the greatest personal challenge.
Bottom line, the Scorecard concept doesn’t need to be rigid, but it should be a regimen you follow faithfully.
Call a Time-Out
Although you have many demands on your time, for this Scorecard regimen to work, you must stop the action immediately after your executive engagement. You’re going to have to pause from the press of daily tasks to be reflective. What did I do well in that meeting? What could I have done differently? Did I successfully secure sponsorship to re-engage with the executive? Do I need a refresher course to improve my executive focused selling skills?
And if you manage others or collaborate with team members on accounts, encourage them to participate with you. Hindsight multiplied can be a wonderful thing.
Use or adapt the Scorecard below to get started. Answer each of the following with True, Mostly True or Needs Improvement after every senior level engagement.
Self-Coaching Scorecard
- I successfully validated my customer’s top business initiatives.
- I effectively aligned my solution’s value with those business initiative(s).
- I credibly demonstrated my solution’s value using business performance metrics meaningful to the executive with whom I met.
- I clearly articulated the enabling solution I envisioned from the perspective of how it will positively change my customer’s business.
- I asked questions that effectively established my credibility and discovered new opportunities.
- I had carefully considered the implications of my customer’s corporate structure and budget cycle in the decision process.
- I scheduled time to role-play the engagement with my manager in advance and to debrief afterward.
Develop a New Game Plan
If you take the time to honestly analyze the details of your engagements and complete a Scorecard each and every time, you’ll start to see patterns. For example: When you went in and tried Approach X three different times, it was totally ineffective each time. But on the occasions you tried Strategy Y, it really sparked some good dialogue and got things moving.
Once you start recognizing patterns and associating them with success or failure, you have exactly what you need to develop a winning game plan. And since you’re both player and coach, the ball is in your hands.
What techniques have proven useful in your experience?
