I decided early in life that I wasn’t a sales person. I couldn’t get excited about getting people to buy things and I had very little interest in making scads of money. I chose to develop my career in social work with a major focus on youth work and community development. I love my work as a change agent with organizations and young people however this past year, I’ve being taken over by a strong desire to work on my own as an independent consultant.  Well we all know that consulting requires sales skills so here I was, looking at my biased attitudes that would surely make me the poorest consultant this side of the 49th parallel.  Fortunately I was  rescued from myself, when out of the blue, my very good friend Emma, knowing I was entering into a new career territory, suggested that I attend a unique sales training workshop, hosted by her father, a very high caliber training consultant in the sales industry.

Before, I go on, I need to say I was not eager for this workshop as the remnants of my old attitudes about sales were still solidly in place. Those attitudes had softened over time as 20 years in the non profit industry taught me that my work used sales skills all the time. Engaging your clients, building trust and rapport, facilitating clients to choose to change (buying), creating partnerships for mutual benefit, closing deals with funders are examples (there are plenty more) of how the sales field and my field of social work is closely related. What hadn’t changed was my own deep seated resistance to what I saw as being a pushy guy who forced his products on people who didn’t want them .

As I am a newly minted and gung ho self employed entrepreneur I know that I have much to learn about the business world and the sales process. I accepted Emma’s father’s invitation and made my way down town for a 7:30 a.m breakfast with an 8 a.m. start. Despite the 10 centimetre snowfall the night before, I made it on time and settled in for the session.

Tim Rooney is founder Rooney Earl and Partners . He is a seasoned CEO who draws on decades of corporate success to help businesses accelerate their sales growth and build sustainable sales organizations (from Tim’s bio). As part of his services, Tim provides workshops to sales personal of all stripes and from every sector. He is an warm and engaging man who tells great stories about his experience but he is even better at eliciting stories of the participants and listening closely to the meaning and implications of their stories. Tim’s presentation was called “No Pressure Prospecting” . He explained how his approach falls within a sales training framework called the Sandler System. There were books, handouts, quick tip guides, pamphlets and follow up options and much more available for those that might want to go into ongoing training of the Sandler system.

I felt totally in the zone throughout the day with Tim. His presentation of the material was engaging, funny at times, but mostly deeply connecting to the questions I have about myself and the skills I am aspiring to learn for my work as a consultant. In my social media work, I am all about finding my inner voice and expressing what I feel strongly about. However, I recognize that my doubts and worries (Tim calls these doubts head trash) sometimes get in the way of me getting to where I want to be. The Sandler system framework, as demonstrated by Tim through highly interactive and honest dialogue with participants (only about 12 of us) made a deep impression on me. A few personal revelations and insights that I took home with me were:

• I need to learn to be more succinct in my explanations about what I do (elevator speech)

• I am more than good enough in what I do and what I have to offer is needed by many individuals and organizations

• Tonality is everything

• I have equal status with anyone
  

• Contracting up front about expectations in a “sales” meeting  is simple, meaningful and necessary

• Question, Question, Question – Listen, Listen, Listen,

• It’s about changing your behaviour within a framework – in this case it’s the Sandler System

• It’s right and good to “go for the no” – letting prospects know I need to move on unless they are still interested

• Incremental improvements over time builds lasting change in your professional development

• Discover the pain – it’s the doorway into engagement with your prospect

Well you get the idea. You would need to be there to understand some of my take aways. How much of this is similar to the work I’ve been done in the non profit world over the past few decades. I’d say 100% of this sales system and framework fits for me.

I now believe that having a system for sales communication instead of the traditional wandering around with a whatever works style is a must. It reminded me of my experiences working with traditional non profit boards. These boards also operate as a team of well meaning individuals however there is no system in place for their important work beyond the “Roberts Rules” framework. Until I learned the Policy Governance system designed by John Carver, I didn’t realize how dysfunctional this “anything goes traditional approach” could be. I mention my board experiences because it was here that I learned to appreciate the benefits of having a logical system to follow to address complex processes.

So, as humans, are we all in sales? Probably not.  However Tim’s presentation and the real life examples coming from such diverse participants in the workshop has deepened my understanding of the sales process and added to my enjoyment of engaging others in common interests and now this includes sales.

Brent Uncategorized consulting, marketing, sales, workshops