Do Cows Get Cold? ...and Other Sales Questions

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In the day-to-day pursuit of sales and working with my customers, I somehow manage to drive about 50,000 miles a year.  I actually enjoy it since it’s a great time to do telephone calls and just think about the business issues that I and the rest of the guys in the firm run into every week.  So there I was last Monday cruising north at 6:00 AM on the winding twisties of Route 100 headed to Quechee, Vermont for a meeting.  Not much happening on the road, classical music amped up on the 8 speaker Dolby, and me clicking paddle shifters back and forth through the gears with every nip and tuck in the road. 

A perfect day for a perfect trip, and then all of a sudden, a new thought bounced into my frontal lobe demanding an answer to the question, “Do cows get cold?”.  I was pushing 70 in a 50 mile zone, when I noticed the steam rising off the farm at the top of the hill.  Temps at -11, that steam was the mist pouring off the cows walking out of their warmer barn headed for last summer’s hay laid out on the rock hard snow.  The image was all I needed to to warp my head into hyperdrive trying to figure out, “Do cows get cold?”

Down in my little village of Bondville (population 647), Mr. Capen, who hays our field for his cows each summer, leaves his cows outside all day, all year no matter what the weather.  How much of this is due to his knowledge that the cows really don’t care about the cold, and how much is due to the fact that his barn collapsed from old age ten years ago, and he hasn’t bothered building a new one, I haven’t got a clue, but I do know that he lets those striped cows hang out in his fields in the most God-awful and absolutely worst wicked weather.  I did ask Cape what he thought as to the answer to the question, but his answer is largely unprintable here.  I then turned to the boys sitting on the bench down at the general store, and got the answer that cows weren’t like horses, so they didn’t need blankets.  Huh?  This "reasoning" then meandered into to a discussion as to the fact that Cape's cows really weren't cows anyhow, but actually cattle, so it didn't matter.  Huh?

So the question of “Do cows get cold?” is currently left unanswered by my Vermont friends,  Wikipedia gave me zip on the matter, and Seri almost had a meltdown focusing on warning me that "it was very cold outside today."

So, you’re sitting there scratching your head and asking what the heck does any of this have to do with sales?  And, the answer is “a lot” since the most successful salespeople get to be that way as a result of their ability to be inquisitive, to ask (and get answered) a variety of both open and closed questions, and to do so in such an engaging manner that their “discovery process” becomes a very comfortable business discussion between them and their potential customers.  Often, just a one-on-one talk about business issues and opportunities.

For an overview of what good sales “Discovery” actually consists of, take a look at our presentation HERE, and let me know what you think.  Also, it may well be that you have better ideas, so just send them to me, and we will update our presentation giving you acknowledgement if you want. 

Another way to be able to answer your questions is to think about attending our Sales Management Effectiveness Boot Camp April 1st-April 3rd in Boston. We know from our experience of five years of Boot Camps that a retuning, a look at new ideas and the opportunity to talk to other management professionals is just the thing to accelerate the productivity of your sales team for 2012. In addition to our core lecturers, guest speakers for this session will include executives from Brainshark, HubSpot, Time Trade and Salesforce.

All attendees receive a free half day Whiteboarding Session scheduled at their convenience anytime during the following six months.

Just email me at jack@derbymanagement.com, and I'll set up a 10 minute call to answer your questions and walk you through the details of how to register.

...and if you know the answer to the cow question, please let me know.

Good Selling!

Jack
Head Coach