Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine we have a seasoned seller.
We start providing new tools and technologies focused on improving efficiency. Imagine, “Use this AI tool, you need to 10X your personalized emails….”
Alternatively, we say, “You need to build your pipeline….”
Or we say, “This is the playbook, stick to it!”
Or, “Follow these scripts, they are proven! Don’t change a single word!”
But the seller came back to us, “Don’t bother me with that sh*t! Selling is all about relationships. When the going gets tough, the tough go to lunch or send logo coffee mug!”
We would be incensed! Managers would call the people up on the carpet.* “This is critical to you doing the job the way we need you to do the job! You need to do these things so we can achieve our goals!”
But the seller persists, “Leave me alone! Just let me do the job the way I’ve always done it. Look at all my contacts, look at all my relationships in LinkedIn! It’s all about relationships, I’ve got the relationships! I’ve had more years than you selling!”
At some point, hopefully quickly, we take action, we fire the person! They can’t just do their own thing. They have to do the things we want them to do. They have to focus on selling our products, generating sufficient opportunities, driving revenue.
It’s unacceptable they don’t know enough about our products to pitch them. It’s unacceptable they aren’t doing enough outreach, having enough meetings. It’s unacceptable they aren’t doing the things important to our success!
For our people to just do the things they want to do, the way they want to do them, is a recipe for failure! We have no problems in terminating them. We fill our ranks with people who would never think, “Don’t bother me with that sh*t!”
At this point in the thought experiment, most of you are probably saying, “This is a crazy experiment. It doesn’t make sense! You’ve already made the case, if our people don’t want to be bothered with the stuff that’s important to us, they are gone!
It is totally unimaginable to have a thought experiment where our people are constantly saying, “Don’t bother me with that sh*t!”
But, now think about our customers and what our behaviors and actions are telling our customers.
Aren’t we telling them, “Don’t bother us with that sh*t?”
We persist in our “self focused” GTM strategies, pushing our outreach, pushing our products, saying, “I’ll give you 10% off if you order by the end of the month!”
We persist on being focused on that which is important to us, but may be irrelevant to the customers.
Customers are telling us, “Leave us alone! You aren’t helping! You don’t care about what we care about! You haven’t taken the time to understand what we really care about and want to achieve!”
We constantly see data where customers prefer a rep-free environment, deferring seller engagement until the are almost ready to take an order. We see data where customers want to buy, but choose not to, because we aren’t helping build their confidence they are doing the right thing! We see falling retention because we aren’t creating the experiences our customers need.
Our customers are virtually screaming, “We need you to understand us, our business, our goals, our fears, our aspirations! We need you to help us figure this out and move forward!”
And our response is, “Don’t bother us with that sh*t!”
And their response, is the same as ours is to a seller that tells us that.
Is that what we want? Is that what our customers really want?
* In writing this, I was curious, “Where did the expression of being called on the carpet come from?” With a little research, I discovered it probably originated in the mid-1800’s. In those days, a worker might be called into a superior’s office which tended to have carpets, rather than the bare floors the workers/subordinates occupied.
Aferword: Here is the AI generated discussion of this article. Enjoy!
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