How do you make an orange?
Jerry L. Kennedy | TLT Selling Points June 2009
Focus your efforts on managing those parts of the sales process that you can control.
So take the focus off of trying to ‘close deals.’ That’s like trying to make oranges.
“How do you make an orange?”
When I ask business owners and sales professionals that question, I get a lot of different responses: “I buy them at the store.” “I pick them off a tree.” “I start with a seed.”
“So what you’re telling me,” I reply, “is that you have no idea how to make an orange.”
At this point, everyone agrees that, no, they have no idea how to make an orange. I’ll then let them off the hook by saying that neither does anyone else. Even an orange farmer will tell you that all he can do is plant the seed and water the tree, then step back and let nature take its course. That’s a bit of an oversimplification, obviously, but you get the point. Unless you have access to a genetics lab and several million dollars, making oranges is impossible—all you can do is support the process that enables oranges to grow.
The same is true of sales: a sale (a new contract, client or other piece of business) is the result, the fruit, of a process. And, as with all other fruit, you can’t
make the sale happen—all you can do is manage the process. That is probably a little different perspective for many of the readers of this article. After all, the majority of sales training focuses on trying to make the sale happen; they talk about “closing the deal,” “getting the yes” and “making the deal.” Those are all different ways of implying that you can somehow learn the magic art of making fruit.
I want you to stop worrying about making fruit. You can’t do it, so stop trying. I want you to shift your focus, instead, to the science of planting seeds and watering trees and letting the fruit, the sale, come as a result of a well-managed process. What is the process?
First, you have to plant seeds. If you want to harvest a good crop, you have to be careful about how you do this. You need the right kind of soil, and you have to give attention to planting in a location that will get the right amount of sunlight. The same is true with selling. You want to be careful about how you plant your seeds through your prospecting efforts. Make sure that you are prospecting in the right places and in front of the right people. Just casting your seeds far and wide is wasteful; focus your efforts on your target market and watch your results soar.
Second, you
must water the tree! This is really where you have the most control over the outcome of your harvest. Again, you have to understand what the right amount of water is for the kind of crop you want to see grow: too little water is not good, but neither is too much. You want to find the “just right” level of watering and stick with that. The same is true of your prospects: too little follow up isn’t good, but neither is too much. You have to find the “just right” combination of amount and content of follow up and stick with it.
The last two articles in this series discussed good interviewing and presentation skills, both of which fall under the category of watering the tree. Properly executed, these two steps, coupled with carefully planned prospecting (see the article “Prospecting Your Customers” that appeared in the February 2008 issue of TLT), will almost always lead to a bumper crop of sales.
So take the focus off of trying to close deals; that’s like trying to make oranges. Instead, plant seeds (prospect) and water trees (perform proper follow up), then stand back and let nature take its course. This approach is less stressful for you, less irritating to your customers and leads to an abundance of fruit.
Jerry Kennedy, CLS, is owner of Inside Out Business Solutions, a sales and customer service training organization. You can reach him at jkennedy@inside-out-solutions.com.