PPB January 2019

Do you serve them by knowing how to help them with a process, ensuring that they know what commitments they need to make and how those commitments serve them? Are you consultative, or are you sometimes something less than that? Ability To Lead Leadership is not something that sales organizations train their salespeople in. We don’t think about salespeople as leaders, but that doesn’t mean the client doesn’t recognize and value a salesperson’s ability to lead. If we had to roll up all the reasons that your dream clients may be dissatisfied with their current partners, you could put them all under one label: “a failure of leadership.” That failure paves the way for a competitive displacement. Why? Leadership is taking accountability for producing a result. If your dream client’s existing partner has not been willing or able to lead their team and the client’s team in producing better results, your leadership creates a preference to work with you. Odds are, your competitor doesn’t demonstrate leadership. One of the primary questions your dreamclient is considering when they choose you to displace their current partner is whether they believe you will produce the better result you promise. They want to know that you are going to move heaven and earth to produce that result, working with them to influence their team tomake changes, and working with your team to ensure that they execute. They want a partner, not someone who will disappear once they sign on the dotted line and leave it to someone else to deal with the challenges that may arise. Resourcefulness If your dream client knew how to produce the better result they needed, they’d already be producing that result. If they knew how to have the internal conversations and build consensus around that initiative, they’d already have done so. Moreover, if your competitor knew how to help them do better and cared enough to force the issue, your dream client would not need you. But none of these things are true, and this is why you have to be resourceful enough to figure out how to help them produce better results. Your resourcefulness needs to come with a good bit of initiative. Throughout the process of working to displace your competitor, you have to prove that you are proactive, that you are buttoned up, detail oriented and working to be in front of any challenges. Thoughtfulness In life, it is the little things that are really the big things. It is sometimes the smallest of gestures that make the largest of impacts. A handwritten card is something different from an email thanking the client for their time and their help. A text message to ask your dream client for their coffee order on your way to meet with them is caring in action, exceeded by remembering their request and not asking before your next meeting. The call to follow-up consistently made. The small commitments consistently kept. A Sense of Humor If there is an intangible that over indexes on producing a preference, it is a sense of humor. I’ll generalize this attribute even more and suggest it is the ability to entertain. Your dream client has to live with you after they hire you, and you need to be someone with whom they want to work. That said, why would they want to work with a humorless bore? There will always be issues that arise when you are pursuing and serving your dream clients. The person who can inject a little levity into those situations without appearing to minimize the challenge has a significant advantage when it comes to creating a preference. This levity can remove some of the stress and can demonstrate your optimism and the confidence that together you will resolve the issue. Excerpted from Eat Their Lunch: Winning Customers Away From Your Competition by Anthony Iannarino with permission of Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © Anthony Iannarino, 2018. Anthony Iannarino is an international speaker, sales leader, creator of The Sales Blog, and author of The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need, The Lost Art of Closing and his newest book Eat Their Lunch . He leads high-performing sales teams and speaks to sales organizations nationwide. He lives with his family in Westerville, Ohio. Ifwehad to roll upall the reasons that your dreamclientsmay bedissatisfied with their current partners, youcould put themall under one label: “a failure of leadership.” That failure paves theway for acompetitive displacement. Why?Leadership is taking accountability for producinga result. 82 | JANUARY 2019 | THINK