Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a trite saying, but “The only constant in life is change……” Let me go through a few more just to get them off my chest:
- Be the change you want to see in the world….
- Nothing changes if nothing changes…
- Change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end…
- Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine….
Thanks for your patience, I need to get those out of my system.
As much as we tire talking about the constancy of change, our jobs as sellers only exist because of change.
We are trying to get our customers to change from the current products or services they are using, to our products and services. We want the customer to change how they are approaching a certain function in their business–so they can buy our solutions. We want the customer to recognize and exploit a new opportunity, which mandates the use of our products and services.
Without some sort of change, we never get a purchase order. It is impossible for us to grow our business.
But how many sellers have been trained on “change?” How many enablement programs include comprehensive training around change and change management?
If we don’t understand change, how can we ever expect our customers to understand it and want to navigate the change process? Stated differently, if left to their own devices, will enough customers be implementing change initiatives for us to achieve our revenue and growth goals.
But, I can count on one hand, the number of sales enablement programs that include any significant training and development on change. What about tools to help us and our customers manage the process? Do we provide these and train our people in how to use these in supporting customers?
Or do we have a case of the blind leading the blind?
In past posts, I’ve spoken a lot about unique skills sellers need to improve their effectiveness and impact in engaging customers. I’ve written about business and financial acumen–our ability to engage our customers in high impact conversations about their businesses. I’ve written about collaborative conversations and problem solving–how we help our customers think about and assess the performance of their business.
All of these touch on change–or change is the driving force underlying them. But I haven’t focused on developing our specific skills in change and change management.
If we were to put together training for sellers on change and change management, we might look at topics like: Understanding change, Models of change management, Leadership in change management, Organizational communication strategies on change, Stakeholder engagement in the planning and implementation process, Dealing with resistance, Change readiness/impact analysis, Implementing and sustaining change, Personal adaptability, and others. We would learn how we, sellers, can provide leadership and support to our customers in successfully managing change.
We would develop skills in a variety of tools to assess and support change, including: Project management, Stakeholder analysis, Impact analysis, Change readiness assessments, Risk management, Resistance management, Training for the change, Performance evaluation, Communication, and so forth.
By developing expertise in these areas, we would create greater value and greater success in incenting our customers to change and supporting them through their change process.
And there’s a bonus on top of this!
Developing these skills, leveraging the tools will help improve our success with our own internal change management processes! (And we know how many of these fail!)
I don’t understand it. Change is fundamental to our existence, as sellers. Yet we don’t train ourselves on it.
And I’m reminded of W. Edward Deming’s quote, “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”
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