Running incentive programs to drive sales is as old as, well, sales. You can’t swing a cat without hitting a sales incentive program – whether compensation-based, point-based or the granddaddy of them all – the group recognition travel award. While I could wax philosophical (and in the real world) for hours on how to design these programs for more impact, greater results and less cost, I’ll let this Friday slip by with a simple but interesting tidbit on a way to possibly increase sales performance.
Don’t Talk Strategy
For most of my sales life in the incentive industry whenever I had a big meeting or presentation, my sales manager and I would talk strategy right before the meeting (and I did the same when I was mentoring someone else so I’m guilty too). We talk about our offer, our unique selling position, our pricing, how we’d respond to specific questions – we would talk about how to “win” the sale.
But interestingly enough – some new research may show that was a very bad idea.
Talk Pleasantries
From a post on the Futurity site:
"They found that engaging in brief (10 minute) conversations in which participants were simply instructed to get to know another person resulted in boosts to their subsequent performance on an array of common cognitive tasks. But when participants engaged in conversations that had a competitive edge, their performance on cognitive tasks showed no improvement.
'We believe that performance boosts come about because some social interactions induce people to try to read others’ minds and take their perspectives on things,' Ybarra says.
'And we also find that when we structure even competitive interactions to have an element of taking the other person’s perspective, or trying to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, there is a boost in executive functioning as a result.'"
For those of us from Rio Linda, executive function is defined (via my Oracle, Wikipedia) as:
The executive system is thought to be heavily involved in handling novel situations outside the domain of some of our 'automatic' psychological processes that could be explained by the reproduction of learned schemas or set behaviors. Psychologists Don Norman and Tim Shallice have outlined five types of situations in which routine activation of behavior would not be sufficient for optimal performance:
- Those that involve planning or decision making
- Those that involve error correction or troubleshooting
- Situations where responses are not well-rehearsed or contain novel sequences of actions
- Dangerous or technically difficult situations
- Situations that require the overcoming of a strong habitual response or resisting temptation
Sales is All Executive Function
Sitting down and talking to a client about your product/service and working toward a mutually-beneficial result is ALL executive function. It’s all about listening and reacting. It’s all about finding new and novel ways to satisfy their needs and your needs. It’s never really rehearsed.
No one is saying to ignore sales strategy. That is something you definitely need to do.
Just don’t do it right before the big meeting or preso.
Increase your performance by talking casually with your boss or co-presenter prior to the meeting. Talk about books, baseball, the bible – I don’t care. Just don’t talk shop.
And when your boss or partner starts to press on the “sales strategy” – just show them this post.
Have a great weekend!
Recent Comments