Just when I thought that it was ok to pop my head out of my bunker and look out at what I thought was shaping up to be a pretty good Q2, WHAM, good ol’ Uncle Bernanke slammed me down like a Whack-a-Mole this week as those wonderful phrases of "worst financial crisis”, “most severe housing bust”, “facing additional headwinds”, “Japanese disaster” and my personal catchall favorite of “additional global pressures” hit the airways. The market this week, already reeling from the effects of last week’s very poor job market results, collided into a stone wall just as hard as Wiley Coyote trying to outmaneuver the Road Runner. Unfortunately, there’s not much that can change either the laws of physics for Mr. Coyote or the effects of macroeconomics when Uncle Ben speaks.
Somehow, my portfolio hopefully will make it through the financial machinations of Obamanomics. All I know is that for all of us out there selling our products and services this month, we now have just one more barrier thrown in front of us this week as a reason not to buy. Nothing slows down a big purchase more than the Fear Factor.
Selling is hard enough trying to manage the buying complexities related to “change” when considering either buying my product or working with my toughest competitor-"doing nothing". It’s tough enough that I’ve got to lay out my key account plans for any large sale to a corporate customer with all of the preciseness of invading a small town in Afghanistan. My sale is complex enough that I have to remember the intricacies of my own value proposition while I figure out buying cycles and processes and run ROI’s and total costs of ownership formulas in my head as I also juggle three other balls and two plates that have been thrown at me from my other customers. And now, I have to deal with the spillover of The Bernanke Factor.
Somewhat like those Jersey barriers on Route 95. Yesterday, I finished a meeting at 6:00 PM smack dab in the intersection of Route 2 and 95. Height of traffic, WBZ alerting me to the fact that there was yet another accident ahead at the Lexington intersection, and I knew that it would only be two miles after that before I hit the two lane Jersey Barrier shrinkdown in Woburn.
And yet, I made it home-a bit more stressed, but unscathed and pretty much on schedule. The extra time stuck in traffic actually allowed me to think through a major account issue and have a longer than usual telephone call with a customer. At the end of the day, as professional salespeople, what we all need to be doing this coming week and through the rest of June is to keep a sharp focus on One Simple Thing: finishing the quarter on plan…irrespective of what’s happening with the economy.
What I do know is that I can’t fix the economy so there's no sense in whining about it. What I also know is that what I can do is stay totally focused and sell something. After working with thousands of salespeople over the last 20 years, what I also know is that the very best, the “A” and “AA” players, the supersalespeople-the professionals, all know how to instantly assess barriers, quickly plan detours around them, immediately get back on the main highway and accelerate just a bit faster than everyone else.
With just 14 selling days left in the quarter, success is now all about focus.
Good selling this week!
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